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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1878, by Charles Kohlmax, in 
the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. ' 



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EXPLANATORY. 


A quarter of a century ago, in an old lumber room of an Illinois farm 
house, covered with waste paper, old books, shoes, and the manifold odds 
and ends of an untidy homestead, presided over by intemperance and 
unthrift, the following beautiful legends were found and dragged to the 
light of day, to feed the ravenous mental hunger of an eager, inquisitive 
boy. The volume is a translation from the French of A. Constant, of 
Geneva. This only copy, yellowed with age, the corners eaten away by 
mice, the binding gone, and neglect, decay and age, giving little jDromise 
of merit in its contents to repay perusal, the finder was so delighted on 
a first, second and third reading that he sought vainly for another copy 
in the cities of New Orleans, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. 
“The Last Incarnation” is believed to be out of print, and from 
this unique copy a workingman has set the type and reprinted the work 
during his leisure moments, solely to benefit his brothers of the working 
class, and to present the beautiful truths of Socialism in a form that will 
attract a large number of good people who could in no other way be 
induced to learn their nature. 



THE LAST INCARNATION. 


I"I?.OXjOC3-TJE. 

I. 

“ I will not leave you fatherless,” said the Christ, when about to quit 
the earth; “ I will come again to you.” 

Ye people, who have believed in the words of the Christ, and who 
still await a consoler, know that the Christ, your Saviour, has never 
abandoned you. Know that he suffers with you, that he labors with 
you, that he groans, and that he prays with you. 

The Christ is the human form of the divine idea. That form you are 
all called upon to realize, and to clothe yourselves anew with its royal 
majesty. 

A model has been given to us in the person of Jesus, our brother, the 
head and the mediator of humanity, in whom God himself lived, willed 
and acted, so that his person was that of the Man-God. 

Now, Jesus, the Man-God, did not accomplish life in all its phases; he 
went through only the sorrowful periods here below. 

Because it was necessary that humanity should first learn how to suffer, 
in order to know how to be happy afterwards; should know how to 
obey, in order to learn how to reign. It was to holy and austure pov¬ 
erty that was intrusted the education of the heirs of God, in order that 
through privations they ni’ght learn the true use of their Father’s riches. 

In teaching men to love their neighbor more than themselves, and 
their soul more than their body, and God more than their soul, the Christ 
emancipated them from the servitude of the flesh, and he elevated the 
flesh itself by calling it to share the liberty of free souls. 

The Christ did not limit his word to an exclusive form; the spirit of 
which it contains the germ is universal. 

He sowed the seed, and time has ripened the grain. 

The word of the Christ, like that of the ancient prophets, has had un¬ 
intelligent and self-interested interpreters, who have wished to seal it 
like the stone of his sepulchre. 

But the word traverses stones, and cannot be kept captive; it escapes 
in spite of walls; it passes in spite of gates of iron; it goes forth in spite 
of sentinels. 

Brothers, the word of the Christ is the word of liberty, of equality, of 
fraternity. 

Of liberty, because he has told us not to fear those who can kill the 
body, and to preserve before God the independence of our souls. 



4 


THE LAST IHCAKKATION. 


Of equality, because he has said to us: you have all only one and the 
same father, one and the same master: he is God, and you are all 
brothers! 

Of fraternity, because he has told the strong to be tbe protectors of the 
v^eak, the learned to instruct the ignorant, the rich to provide for the 
necessities of the poor. 

This word presided at first over the construction of the hierarchical 
body of the primitive church; then the priests were fathers chosen by 
the people; the bishops were superintendents, who took care of the 
poor, and who protected the orphans and the widows; and all, from a 
spirit of conciliation and peace, referred their differences to a single 
judge chosen from among themselves, and who was therefore called the 
servant of the servants of God, 

Oh! how beautiful was the Church then, in the unity of her head and 
in the harmony of her members! How grand was that society of 
brothers, presided over by its fathers, and administered to by its old 
men! 

The unity of object, and the simplicity of means, found a use in the 
co-operation of each in the work of all; each group of the system moved 
harmoniously around its centre, like the satellites around their planets, 
which themselves move peacefully around the sun. 

Then the interest of the pastors was that of their flocks, and that 
avarice which destroyed Judas had not yet brought trouble into the 
sanctuary; pride had not yet transformed the charges of charity into pre¬ 
rogatives and worldly granduers, and the rival passions had not divided 
the inheritance of the Lord. 

But, in order that it might be overcome by good, evil had to be mani¬ 
fested ; and the Christian law was as a snare spread for the errors and 
the irregularities of the flesh. 

Human vices, by manifesting themselves in the Church of the Chirst, 
condemned themselves; therefore they were not able to prevail there 
even for a few moments, but by means of hypocrisy and lying. 

When misguided pontifts surpassed the luxury and the insolence of 
kino-s, the spirit of the Church, which has never ceased to be that of the 
Christ, groaned in the heart of the saints, and condemned the sacrilegious 
usurpers, by always reminding the sovereign pontiff that he was the 
servant of the servants of God. 

When the inquisition tortured souls and bodies, to constrain that which 
God himself respects in man,—liberty of conscience, the spirit of the 
Christ wept over the victims, and justly excommunicated the persecutors, 
by protesting that the Church has a horror of blood. 

Thus, by their very crimes, the priests have shown more magnificently 
and more splendidly how holy is religion! 

Now the Church seems to sleep a sleep of death, because the priests 
have separated themselves from the people, and form a caste apart, im¬ 
bued with Pharisaical traditions and the prejudices of education; but the 
Church cannot be separated from humanity. If the priests remain sta¬ 
tionary while humanity advances, it is because they wish soon to separate 
themselves from the religion of the Christ, for the spirit of the Saviour 
of the people advances with the people. 

Those men have grown old, without being able to free their feet from 
the swaddling bands of their earliest infancy! They believe in the Gos¬ 
pel, without interrogating its admirable symbolism, and they admit its 


THE LAST IHCAEHATIOH. 


5 


marvels literally, as little children give faith to the fantastic stories of the 
woman who rocks them. 

They are the guardians of the doctrine after the manner of the senti¬ 
nels of kings’ palaces; they defend the entrance and do not go in them¬ 
selves. The dead letter has remained in their hands, as the mortal body 
of the Christ remained in the arms of his weeping mother, under the 
lowering and gloomy sky of Calvary; but the spirit has gone to make 
war on the powers of darkness, to break the gates of hell, and to deliver 
the groaning crowd of captive souls. 

Everywhere the spirit of the Gospel makes conquests, except in the 
closed minds and frozen hearts of those who call themselves the deposi¬ 
taries of the Gospel. 

The sciences gravitate toward their grand synthesis; unity governs all 
ideas, and harmony arranges them in a marvelous order; analogy gives 
to faith, enlightened by science, the key of all problems; synthesis 
brings together all symbols, and proclaims religious unity by the voice 
of all ages; the truly Catholic idea merely begins to be born, and those 
old men are there, stopping their ears, closing their eyes, making them¬ 
selves motionless upon the ruins of the past, like urns upon graves! 

Well, then, since those who should teach the people have no longer 
any voice, since the Word has no longer any need of them for interpre¬ 
ters, let us borrow a new gospel legend from the genius of the people, 
and from their aspirations after humanitary progress! 

Let us complete the epopoeia of the Christ by the allegorical recital of 
his second coming, and let us relate his triumphs to those who have 
wept so much over his sorrows. 


II. 

The Son of God is the perfect man; he is the idea of human perfec¬ 
tion manifested by the word and realized by works. 

God utters from all eternity the word that must save the people; and 
humanity works and advances in progress, only to realize that word. 

The divine idea of human perfection was realized in different degrees 
in all the great men who were the heads and models of society; then it 
was completed and summed up in Jesus. 

And Jesus, having given himself entire to humanity, by a devotedness 
without bounds, has transmitted his life entire, under the symbols of the 
fraternal bread and the wine of union, to the whole of humanity, which 
he has thus formed into a single body. 

So that now the Christ is no longer an individual; he is a people. 

He lives in all those who are animated by the spirit of the Gospel; he 
speaks by the mouth of all those who utter a word conformable to his. 

He has promised that the reign of intelligence should be his reign, and 
that his second coming should bring down the clouds from heaven, that 
is to say, should free religion from its mysteries and its fables. 

He must shine as the lightning, which shines from the east even to 
the west; and the eagles of genius must gather together to reply to his 
call. 

Let this book then be the last legend of Jesus, the son of Mary. Let 
us cause his sweet and divine figure to descend from heaven and traverse 



6 


THE LAST IXCAKNATION. 


the earth, assuming all forms, as in the marvelous stories of the middle 
ages, in order to give instruction to all, and to prepare for his great 
coming! 

Let the people read and at last understand truth under the form of alle¬ 
gories; let it recognize and love always its Saviour and its model, in the 
person of the proletary of Galilee. 

We shall borrow from the ancient gospel legend its simple and popu¬ 
lar form; for he who speaks to all must use language which may be un¬ 
derstood by all. 


FIRST LEGEND. 

THE LITTLE CHILD WHO SEEKS HIS FATHER AND HIS MOTHER. 

At that time there was a little child who walked all alone in the coun¬ 
try, and who seated himself by the side of the road and cried. 

His poor little feet were swollen and sore ; his short little hands were 
blue with cold; for it was at the end of autumn, and the north wind 
whirled about the last yellow leaves of the stripped trees. * 

He was barely covered by a poor little dress of thin woollen stuff, and 
the frost of the morning, which had been melted from the trees by the 
pale sun, had wet the curls of his blonde hair with a freezing rain. 

There was an inexpressible sweetness in his eyes full of tears; and 
while his eyes wept, his little, shivering mouth seemed to try to smile. 

He rested for a moment, then he clasped his hands as if in prayer, and 
courageously resumed his walk. 

And to all those who passed and who asked him why he cried, the 
poor child answered: “I am seeking my father and mother.” 

Now, on that day a young and rich lady was returning in a carriage 
from her beautiful country seat. 

She was magnificently arrayed and voluptuously perfumed; seated 
upon soft cushions covered with silk, she was sad and digusted with life: 
for God had not made her a mother. 

She saw the little child who was walking with bare feet and who was 
cold, and she felt her heart moved at the sight of his wonderful beauty. 

Then she stopped her carriage, and having called the poor little trav¬ 
eler, she said to him: “Where are you going?” 

“I am going to seek my father and mother,” replied the little child. 

“And where are your father and your mother? Are they far from 
here ?” 

“They are travelers like me upon the earth; and while I seek them 
here perhaps they are seeking me further off, with much anxiety and 
sorrow.” 

“ How long since did you leave them?” 

“ I did not leave them; they went away from me to work, in order 
that they might get food for me. But, perhaps, they may not have been 
able to find bread for their work, and have gone still further; then per¬ 
haps still further off, and I have remained an orphan because my parents 
were poor.” 

“Well, I am rich, and I wish to be a mother to you in order that I 
may have something to care for. Now climb up into my carriage,” for 
the road was damp and the lady did not wish to soil her rich dress. 



THE LAST INCARNATION. 


7 


But the child said: “No, madam, you cannot be a mother to me. 
The heart of a mother is like the heart of God. My mother, with ten¬ 
der affection—not pity—would have descended to the earth to clasp me 
to a heart filled with purest love. The rich cushions on which you sit 
are perhaps wet with the tears of the workman.” 

The lady was surprised, but felt the force of the child’s words, and she 
wept: but fearing lest her eyes might be red from weeping, she wiped 
them and ordered her coachman to drive on, while her thoughts again 
turned to parties and dances. 

The little one again pursued his way. The next person whom he met 
was a haughty cavalier, who came near riding over the humble child, 
being too proud to deign any notice of him. 

An old man, a priest, then came slowly walking along the highway, 
reading a holy book. He looked up and beheld the child. “Whence 
come you and who are your parents?” said he. 

The child replied, “ My parents are poor, and while they seek work 
to buy bread for them and me, I have lost them, and wander about in 
pursuit of my father and mother; they, perhaps, are now seeking in vain 
for me.” 

“To what parish do they belong?” said the priest, who was a devout 
naan, and whose life had been spent in the most austere observance of all 
religious precepts. 

“To all parishes,” said the child. 

“ Then your parents are vagabonds,” and the priest flung a small coin 
upon the roadside at the child’s feet. 

“ My parents are not vagabonds,” said the little one, “ and God does 
not tell you to teach little children to dishonor their father and mother. 
I did not ask you for money, but for my parents.” 

“ I do not know your father.” 

“And yet,” said the child, “ you claim to be his priest, and that he is 
known to you as the Creator.” 

“ In that case, your father must be God.” 

“ It is you who teach little children to say, ‘ Our Father who art in 
Heaven.’ ” 

“ My little man, you are a reasoner, and that does not become child¬ 
hood.” 

“ Reason becomes all ages, and I did but answer when questioned by 
you.” 

“All is lost,” said the divine; “the very country children dispute with 
us.” And he pursued his journey and the perusal of his book. 

Meantime the little wayfarer toiled onward until he approached the 
outskirts of a great city. Here a poor woman who was gathering a few 
scanty faggots beheld him, and taking his little cold hand in hers, ques¬ 
tioned him. She took him to her own humble dwelling. When they 
entered her children drew together closely, shivering over the scanty em¬ 
bers in the fireplace, but made no room for the strange child, toward 
whom they cast jealous looks. The mother upbraided them and struck 
the eldest with her hand, who at once fell to the ground and expired. 
The mother, shrieking “ What have I done!” clasped her child to her 
breast and laid the small, lifeless body upon the bed. Then she turned 
to the Christ-child. “Go away!” said she; “You have brought me sor¬ 
row and death for the good I would have done you.” 


8 


THE LAST IHCAKNATION. 


But the Christ-child breathed upon the lips of the dead boy and laid 
his hand upon its breast, whereupon the little one heaved a deep sigh 
and sat up again, a living child. The Christ-child then blessed the chil¬ 
dren and their mother and took from his bosom a little cross which he 
gave to her. 

That evening he was seen at a short distance from there, upon the 
bank of a stream which was crossed by a plank placed on two stones; 
the child was seated in the moonlight, the wind raised his blonde hair, 
and he pressed his two little arms crossed upon his breast as if to warm 
himself. Some one asked him in passing what he was waiting for. He 
replied: 

“ I am waiting for my father.” 

Soon afterwards, a poor blind old man came to cross, and he directed 
his steps towards the bridge of the stream, by feeling with his stick 
along the rough and stony ground. 

Then the child rose, and running to meet the poor blind man, he took 
him by the hand and led him, for the road in that place was dangerous 
and broken. 

Then placing the hand of the old man on his shoulder, he served him 
for a support as far as the neighboring city, which they entered without 
being seen. 

The child conducted the old man to his dwelling, but he was not will¬ 
ing to enter, for he said to him: 

“ My mother is waiting for me.” 

And in one of the most retired suburbs of the city he went and rapped 
softly at the door of a house which was carefully closed. 

“Who is there?” asked a'woman’s voice, the accent of which was 
profoundly desolate. 

“It is your son; open,” said the little child. 

“ My son will not come back again, ” said the voice,“ he died yester¬ 
day, and to-day he was put into the ground. ” 

“ Open to me,” replied the child, “ I am Jesus, the friend of those who 
weep, and I have made myself once more a little child, in order to restore 
to you him whom you think you have lost! Open to me! for Mary, my 
celestial mother, holds your little child upon her knees, in the paradise of 
innocence; and she sends hers to you that you may be very sure that he 
whom you love is very happy.” 

Then the door opened softly and the child entered; he seated himself 
on the knees of the poor mother, and related to her how he had come, and 
how he had tried the hearts of those whom he had met on his route. 

Then the mother having ceased weeping, asked him if those who had 
met him without knowing him would be punished for not having 
assisted him. 

“ They will be sufficiently punished when they shall know that it was I,” 
replied Jesus. And they will know it when they begin to become 
better; for the regret of a good deed is the greatest punishment for not 
having done it. I revisit the earth to try and console. So long as I still 
retain the form of a child, I shall seek my father and my mother. But as 
perhaps no one yet knows how to accomplish all his duties towards a child, 
I shall first give the example of accomplishing those of a child. I shall 
not again find my father and my mother here below; but I will choose 
them from among those who have need of a child to love them. The 
blind man whom I can guide to prevent him from stumbling over the 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


9 


stones of the road shall be my father, the poor widow who weeps, and 
whom I can console, shall be my mother, and the deserted orphans who 
have no one to love them shall be my brothers and my sisters. ” 


SECOND LEGEND. 

THE SAME CHILD AND THE SAME PRIESTS, AFTER AN INTERVAL OF 
EIGHTEEN HUNDRED AND FORTY YEARS. 

The Christ appeared to sleep in the house of the poor widow; but dur" 
ing the hours of night, his soul returned to heaven, in order not to see the 
crimes of earth. 

He revisited the paradise of innocence, and caressed his new brother, 
the widow’s son, to whom he spoke of his poor mother, now less deso¬ 
late: the soul of Christ loves to rest in heaven among little children, and 
to resume all the infantile graces which filled the soul of Mary with so 
sorrowful a happiness, when, in the midst of the caresses of her well- 
beloved son, she had a presentiment of the anguish of Calvary! Now 
the celestial virgin no longer fears that her tender child may die a second 
time, and she knows that henceforth he will no more be taken from her; 
nevertheless the ecstacy of her happiness is still imbued with a remem¬ 
brance full of melancholy; and the joy of the formerly sorrowful mother 
(Mater dolorosa) remains in a concentration which resembles sadness. 

“Mother,” said Jesus to her, “ now that I am no longer a mortal man, 
but a human form of the divine idea, I can descend upon the earth with¬ 
out suffering there, and without ceasing to be near you! I will assume, 
to instruct men, the appearances of childhood, of weakness, of suffering; 
I have already begun to appear to them under the figure of a child, only 
they will no longer see either my birth or my death. I shall go through 
all the phases of life in my appearances, and will transfigure myself 
as my doctrine must be transfigured; will you, O my mother, also be 
willing to speak sometimes to those who are likewise your children?” 

“ It shall be done according to your will, my sweet lord and son,” said 
Mary, kissing him on the forehead. “ I know that if you are the type 
of the perfect man, I must serve as a model of the woman and the mother; 
my heart never leaves you, O my son! I shall be near you when you 
again traverse the earth; if it be necessary to manifest to men my sym¬ 
bolical form, you have only to will, and I shall appear to them. Go, 
therefore, and do according to your desire; for already the sun has reap¬ 
peared upon the earth, where your human appearance now rests asleep: 
the hours pass quickly in heavenly conversations, and do you go now and 
wake again upon the earth, my beautiful beloved child!” 

The sun began to raise the grayish veil which covered the black bell- 
towers, the bluish domes, and the moist roofs of the city in which the di¬ 
vine child slept. 

The poor widow had already risen, and, looking upon the Son of God 
as he slept, she thought she again saw her child for whom she had wept 
so much. 

He rose; and both together prayed to our Father who is in heaven. 

Then the Saviour said to the woman: 

“ Mother, I am going now where the service of my father calls me. I 
shall come back this evening, therefore weep no more.” 



10 


THE LAST INCAENATIOK 


The widow fell upon her knees, and dared not retain him. It was now 
broad daylight, and Jesus having gone out, walked through the streets 
of the city. 

Then the children of the people, seeing his beauty, his gentleness, and 
his strange dress, began to follow after him, mocking him; and Jesus con¬ 
tinued on his way without looking at them and without uttering a word. 

But he groaned in himself, and he prayed while he said: “ How shall 
these arrive at the knowledge of their rights, if they grow up thus in in¬ 
solence, and in the forgetfulness of fraternity! Poor children of the peo¬ 
ple, your greatest misfortune is not poverty, it is ignorance and brutish¬ 
ness! Happy will he be who shall teach you your duties, and shall make 
you love them. For you will then know your rights, and virtue will 
make you free.” 

Then one of those children, more wicked than the others, and irritated 
because Jesus answered nothing, approached him with an insolent air, 
and struck him. 

Jesus stopped him, and said to him with gentleness: 

“ What have I done to you? It is not I who will return to you the evil 
that you do to me, but others will return it to you. For you are wicked, 
and the world, which is wicked like you, will return to you evil for evil.” 

Having said these words, the child Jesus disappeared from the midst of 
the children of the people, and all searched for him with astonished eyes. 

Now, in the porch of a neighboring temple,other children were seated, 
and a priest, standing in the midst, instructed them. 

Jesus came and took a seat among the children, and listened to the 
priest. 

Then when the priest had finished speaking, he questioned the child¬ 
ren; and having come to Jesus, he asked him: “ What is God?” 

“God alone can himself say what he is,” replied the child: “but you 
could not understand his words, for they would be infinite and eternal.” 

“ That is not rightly answered,” said the priest; “you should say, God 
is a spirit, eternal, independent, unchangeable and infinite, who is pres¬ 
ent everywhere, who sees everything, who can do everything, who has 
created all thirtgs, and who governs all things.” 

“ I do not understand,” said the child Jesus. “ You say that God is a 
spirit; are there then several spirits like unto God? Why do you not say 
that God is spirit? And then I should ask you if God is spirit only ? is he 
not love and power? ” 

“ I do not understand in my turn,” said the priest. 

“Why then do you endeavor to explain what you can not understand ? 
What is God for us? He is our father who is in heaven: we know 
nothing more of him. Look at the world, and you will not doubt his 
being: but do not endeavor to define it; for how will you express by 
human words him whom immensity cannot contain ? him who, in pro¬ 
ducing by his word millions of suns and of worlds, has hardly pronounced 
for us the first letter of his name?” 

“ Do you come here to insult your pastor?” replied the old priest, with 
bitterness. “ Since you are so wise and have learnt your lesson so well, 
you need not come here again: begone!” 

“ And why should I go out from the house of prayer? are you here 
to drive away the little children whom your master called around him? 
You are more proud and more harsh than the doctors of Jerusalem, for 
when the child Jesus came to converse with them in the temple, they 


THE LAST mCAENATION. 


11 


questioned him and replied to him, being astonished at the wisdom of 
his words; but it is not said that they wished to drive him away.” 

At these words, the priest became red with anger. He opened his 
mouth to speak, but he found no voice; in vain did he move his lips and 
his tongue while he rolled his eyes, his power of speech had been taken 
from him, and he could no longer articulate any sound. 

Then Jesus ascended slowly towards the altar, took the priest’s chair, 
and seating himself in his presence, he began to teach. 

“ My brothers and my sisters,” said he to the children, “ do not try to 
know what God is; you could not comprehend him;but endeavor to love 
him by thinking that he is good and that he loves you. Do not repeat 
at hazard that he is a spirit, for you cannot understand what a spirit is: 
but obey him as you obey your father and your mother. For it is he who 
wishes your mother to love you, and your father to work for you. And 
if your father should die, and if your mother were taken from you, think 
that you have always a father in heaven, and that God will always love 
you as your mother has loved you. 

“ You are all brothers, because God is the father of you all: and he 
loves you all, the poor as well as the rich, but more particularly the poor, 
because they have more to suffer. Be therefore like God your father: love 
each other all of you without distinction: but love most those who are 
the weakest, the smallest and the poorest, in order that you may be like 
your good father, who will see it and who will bless you. 

“ You are glad when people love you and when they do good to you. 
You do not like to have them take away what is yours, to have them 
insult you, strike you or prevent you without good reason from doing 
what you wish. Those who do not love you and who do you harm, 
you say that they are wicked; and those who love you and are kind to 
you, you say they are good. 

“ Well, if you wish to be the children of God and to obey him, never be 
wicked, for God is not wicked. On the contrary, be always good, and 
do as much good to the world as you can; for God is good and can do 
only good. 

“ Pray to your father that he may make you good; it is his will and 
his desire; but it must also be your desire and your will, and the more 
you are accustomed to pray, the more you will be accustomed to desire 
what is good. Now, when you often desire to be good, by degrees you 
become better. 

“Fray; because prayer makes you think of God; and the thought of 
God is a good and salutary thought. Pray often; because your youth 
distracts yoiq and you have frequent need to be recalled to wisdom.” 

When the Child-Jesus had finished speaking, the old priest, who had 
again come to himself, fell at his feet, and suddenly recovering the power 
of speech, said to him: “Lord, forgive me, for I could not at first be¬ 
lieve that it was thou. The words which thou hast uttered are those of 
the Saviour of the world; and I was deprived of voice because thou alone 
hast the words of eternal truth.” 

Jesus said to him: “You know not how to understand, because for 
too long a time you have ceased to love. Still it is not you who are cul¬ 
pable, but those who have brought you up thus. I know your upright¬ 
ness and the purity of your morals, according to the world; but know 
that, before my Father, it is charity which purifies. 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 




“ Therefore, old man, if you wish to enter into life, become ag-am a 
little child and ask God to grant you a little simplicity and love. Fill no 
longer with empty words the flock which I have intrusted to you; love 
children in onler that they may understand, for their undertsanding is in 
the heart.” • 

And rising, Jesus went out from the temple. 

At the door he found a woman who was waiting for him and who 
said : “ Good Saviour, divine child of all desolate mothers, brother of 

all orphans, forgive me for having approached this temple at the sound 
of thy voice. How could I remain alone in my dwelling after having 
received thee there; and whither can I go henceforth except in the traces 
of thy blessed feet?” 

Jesus answered her: 

“Mother, you know well that I love you, why then should you fear 
to be left alone? Do not attach yourself so much to the form which 
passes. To-day I appear under the figure of a child, and to-morrow 
under another appearance; but my spirit is always the same. 

“ My spirit is that of God living m humanitv; and if all understood 
that spirit, there would be no more death, for humanity does not die. 

“ The mother who has lost her child, and the child who has lost its 
mother, are they not made to come together and be united? Canyon 
say that you are alone in the world, and have you not always the means 
of loving? 

“ Woman, I shall return this evening to your humble dwelling in order 
to drive away the remembrance of death and to bless it; but to-morrow, 
if you seek me again under the form which I have to-day, you will no 
longer find me. 

“ Then, if you wish to find me, search among the children who are de¬ 
serted and who weep. And if you find one who, at night, knows not 
where to lay his head, and who will be thrown into prison, with the male¬ 
factors, because he is an orphan and forsaken, woman, take him by the 
hand, for I tell you in truth that he is your son, and that all the good which 
you shall do him, you will have done to me.” 

On finishing these words, the child was carried elsewhere by the spirit 
of God, and the woman resumed the road to her house, meditating upon 
the words of lesus in the bottom of her heart. 


THIRD LEGEND. 

THE MARTYDOM OF THE INNOCENTS. 

After this, the Christ, by the divine power of the spirit, translated him¬ 
self into several places at once; for his love led him to visit the sufiferings 
of children, and among so many poignant sufferings which called to 
him at the same time, he would not have known which to choose in 
order to visit first. 

He saw, therefore, at the same time the thousand stations of this horri¬ 
ble industrial purgatory, in which are tortured the children of the people. 
There he saw meagre woman, with cadaverous and fixed looks, work¬ 
ing without respite and without repose to prolong for a few days the 
existence of their little children, who seemed, during that time, to sleep 
by their side. 



THE LAST IlSrOAEHATION. 


13 


But the poor innocents did not sleep, they were in a lethargy! For, 
to prevent them from suffering and crying during the long days of tor¬ 
ture, their mothers themselves had made them take a poison which kills 
slowly and which deadens pain. 

Other children, larger, but still more sad to look upon, were working 
like the wheels of the machines, which incessantly threatened them wkh 
a horrible death, if they allowed their attention to be distracted for a sin¬ 
gle moment. There prevailed a silence of death, only interrupted some¬ 
times by words which seemed to come from hell. . 

The Child-God did not speak to them, for they could not have under¬ 
stood him; he did not manifest himself to their eyes, they would not have 
recognized him; only he went and came in the midst of those poor child¬ 
ren, and touching their head and their chest he renewed their courage 
and prevented thought from being awakened in their mind. 

His eyes were filled with tears, and in the presence of so much suffer¬ 
ing, he- again clothed himself with the bleeding remembrances of Calva¬ 
ry. The crown of thorns seemed to tear his brow afresh, the marks of 
the nails made his hands and his feet bloody, and his arms were sadly 
clasped around the cross. 

And he began again to pray as he had prayed in the garden of Olives, 
with a mortal sadness and inexpressible anguish. And he said: “ My 
Father, take pity on the suffering of the innocents! touch the hearts of the 
rich, and bring about the deliverance of the poor! ” 

And he went thus, suffering, praying and weeping, from house to house, 
seeking the rich and the owners of the factories, looking upon them and 
passing before them, while he showed them his child’s face torn by the 
horrible crown, and his little hands pierced, and his cross, and his blood, 
and his tears. 

But those men, in consequence of loving and serving the idols of gold 
and of silver, had become like unto them; they had eyes and they saw 
not, they had ears and they did not wish to hear. Those among them 
who perceived the Christ or who deigned to remark him, asked him with 
an ironical smile if he brought them any money. 

Then the Christ gathered in his hand his tears and the blood which 
flowed from his heart, and every tear was changed into a piece of silver, 
and every drop of blood into apiece of gold. And he gave these to them 
in his indignation, saying to themYou have made me change my 
tears into silver, and my blood into gold; but when my father shall do 
justice, shudder and tremble! the silver shall again become tears for you 
and the gold shall again become blood, and you will be compelled to re¬ 
pay with usury.” 

Then he left them and transported himself with the rapidity of thought 
into the houses where were taught the children of the rich. There it was 
no longer the prolonged agony of the body, it was the torture of the soul. 
The children, ranged in herds, were pent up within gloomy walls, and 
forced to apply their minds, suffering and repelled, to repugnant studies. 
Instead of the sweet teachings of their mother, they heard only the disa¬ 
greeable and monotonous voice of a master hired to repeat to them always 
the same things. And the ennui which this caused them was punished 
in them as a fault. If they had the good sense not to understand any¬ 
thing of that nonsense called wise, if their memory relieved itself by for¬ 
getting, they were deprived of air and food, they were refused some mo¬ 
ments of that recreation which nature made imperiously necessary for 


14 


THE LAST INCAENATION. 


them, and they were compelled to expiate their disgust of a repugnant 
and useless task, by a task more useless and more repugnant still. It was 
thus their minds were stupified and their hearts obliterated in order to 
make of them machines for the production of money, and the deaf and 
dumb slaves of pitiless property. 

•Jesus comprehended all these distressing things, and saw several of 
those children, already made old by impiety and disgust, seek in shame¬ 
ful habits an often fatal distraction. 

And he said to himself that the children of the rich were not more 
happy than those of the poor; this is why, thought he, those are happy 
whom intelligence and love have freed from the servitude of riches! The 
true riches of man are the noble faculties of h’s soul, when God satisfies 
and animates them! The real treasures of man are those which he car¬ 
ries everywhere with him, and which no one can take from him; the joy 
of a good conscience, the dignity of a free will, and the noble love of God 
and of his creatures! 

And Jesus passed through the midst of those children, who did not 
deign to speak to him, because he had the appearance of a child of the 
people. Others laughed at him as had done the children of the street, 
and a man who assumed the title of master did not impose silence on them, 
but approaching Jesus asked him who he was and how he had entered. 

Jesus answered him: “ I am the child who teaches masters, and I have 
come down from Heaven because you have closed your doors against 
me. I am the truth which judges your teachings, and which has found 
them to be lies. For, instead of bringing up the children of God for im¬ 
mortality, and of thinking to make them men, you bring them up slaves 
of the demon of riches for the corruption of all, and you make of them 
animals with rapacious instincts. 

“ You think you are the high priests of the sciences, and you are sacri- 
ficers to Moloch. You think you have the key of the doors of life, and 
you open only the gate of hell. You pretend to form men, and you 
know neither what a man is, nor what are his high destinies. 

“And how shall you teach these children whom you know not how 
to love, and whose wants you do not comprehend ? How can you make 
the young flower of their thought to bloom in the rays of the sun of God ? 
You do not see the divine sun, and you tread heavily upon the flowers 
of life. 

“ But you cannot even understand my words, and to awaken your 
heart is required the sweet and insinuating voice of my mother. Come, 
O Mary! let your crown of gentle light dissipate by degrees the darkness 
of their hearts. Men do not know how to love children, it is for a woman 
to teach them. Come, O model of mothers, console all these poor 
orphans, instruct those who torment them!” 

After these words, Jesus departed; and everywhere that he had been 
seen to pass appeared, walking in his footsteps, the divine figure of Mary, 
beautiful with ineffable compassion and radiant with gentleness. She 
wiped the brow of the poor children of the people, condemned to the piti¬ 
less labor of the factories, and embraced them by turns, telling them to 
take courage and to hope. Then the poor little ones felt their hearts 
moved, their eyes again found some tears, and they felt themselves happy 
that they could weep. 

Then Mary passed into the prisons where the education of the age en¬ 
chains its sad captives, and a single smile of her mouth taught much more 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


15 


to those poor children than all the lessons of their masters, for they re¬ 
membered their mothers, and they experienced the desire to be better on 
feeling reawaken within them the necessity of loving. 


FOURTH LEGEND. 

THE APPRENTICE CARPENTER. 

At that time, Jesus said: “In order to render the condition of the 
children better, it is first necessary to teach their fathers and their 
mothers. 

“When men shall be associated in their labor, the heaviest burdens 
will not weigh upon the weakest, and when all shall work, there will be 
rest for all. Then the rich will no longer torture their own children in 
order to fit them for unjust domination, and the poor will not be com¬ 
pelled to bend Iheir youngest sons to the sorrows of servitude. For 
selfish passions will no longer stifle nature, and men will understand that 
labor is a duty and should never be a punishment. For there is no one 
to whom Providence has not given more fitness for one function than 
for another; and labor ought to be distributed according to the inclina¬ 
tions, and divided according to the strength of each. 

“As to education, it ought to be common to all, like the light of the 
sun, for all desire it and feel the need of it. And when it shall no longer 
be falsified in its direction and barbarous in its methods, it will be a re¬ 
ward and a happiness for all children.” 

Jesus said this as he passed near a harbor where the carpenters were 
at work building a vessel. Some were squaring a large tree which was 
to be placed at the keel, and others were smoothing and adjusting planks 
of equal size, to form the sides of the hull. And all worked according 
to a plan and upon precise measures, in order that the work of one should 
conform to that of another, and that the whole should be harmoniously 
composed of all the parts. 

Jesus, under the figure of a youth, approached the foreman who had 
the superintendence of the work, and asked him if he could not give him 
occupation among his workmen. 

The foreman looked at him disdainfully, and said to him: “What use 
could 3mu be to us? You are not strong enough?” 

Jesus then noticed ten stout men who could not succeed in lifting an enor¬ 
mous piece of timber, because they distributed their forces badly and 
did not act together. All the strongest were on one side, and on the 
other all the weakest; so that the piece of timber, when raised on one 
side, threatened to fall on the other, and to crush a part of the workmen. 

Jesus approached and said to them: “Brothers, let me help you.” 

And they began to laugh, leaving their hard labor in order to wipe the 
sweat from their brows. 

But Jesus spoke to them with so much gentleness that they allowed 
themselves to be advised by him: he distributed the greatest strength 
where the weight was most heavy, assigned to each his post, indicating 
to him the motion he was to make; he himself then placed his white 
and delicate hand under the enormous mass and gave the signal. And 
the mas^ of timber was raised without effort and as if by a miracle. 



16 


THE LAST IHCARHATION. 


Then turning towards the foreman, he said to him: “You see that 
in association no one is weak; for he who can do the least with his hands 
can sometimes do the most by his advice. It is the co-operation of small 
efforts that determines the greatest movements; and in order that a small 
force may become a power, it is only necessary to put it in its true place, 
so that it may act in harmony with all the other forces.” 

Then the workmen said to him: “ You are very young; and we see 
that you are already passed master in our trade.” 

Jesus said to them: “ I am an apprentice carpenter; but I speak to you in 
the name of supreme wisdom, which is master in all the arts and in all the 
sciences. When Noah caused to be built the ark, which was to preserve 
the seeds of a new world, he consulted that supreme wisdom, and by it di¬ 
rected the co-operation of his workmen in the construction of that wonder¬ 
ful vessel. 

“ But the workmen who had labored in the building of the ark did not 
enter it, and perished in the deluge, because they obeyed the man, and 
did not penetrate the divine thouglit. Let it not be so with you, for I tell 
you in truth, that you are all called to the- building of a, new ark. Be, 
therefore, intelligent workmen; and be careful to provide a place for 
yourselves and for your children in the great social vessel, in order that 
you may not perish when the great storm shall come.” 

The workmen said to him: “ Of what storm do you speak?” 

Jesus answered them: “ When the wind blows, it must raise, or it must 
carry away, or it must overturn everything that opposes its passage. If it 
is thrown back upon the waters, it will upturn the mass of the waters, and 
if it descends in a whirlwind upon the earth, it will uproot the trees. 

“ The spirit of God, the spirit of intelligence and of love, is like an im¬ 
petuous wind, which blows from the east even to the west. It drives 
before it the clouds of error, shakes the rocks of pride which resist it, and 
uproots the old beliefs. And those who have thought they could usurp the 
kingdom of heaven, try to repel it and to drive it back upon the suffer¬ 
ing multitudes, as upon the surface of the waters. This is why you must 
hasten to erect the edifice of salvation, in order that the rising of the 
waters may not carry you away.” 

Then the workmen understood his words; and some became pensive, 
others looked at him with astonishment, while others murmured within 
themselves, saying: “This young boy is sent here to make us talk:” and 
they mistrusted him. 

But Jesus, taking an axe, began to work with them; and everything 
that he did was of an admirable precision. 

Then he said to them: “ If any one requests you to labor for the sal¬ 
vation of your brothers, and does not at the same time put his hand to 
the work, distrust that man. True love for the people is proved less by 
words than by deeds. And how will they believe that a man feels for 
their sufferings, unless he suffers with them? Listen to the advice of 
those who give you examples, and do not allow yourselves to be ener¬ 
vated and discouraged in the present, by thoughts of the future: the future 
will be the son of the prese*nt, and to-morrow will gather what you sow 
to-dao. 

“ But take care that envy, or foolish pride, or other bad passions, do 
not make you despise the advice of those who love you. Recollect what 
happened to the people who allowed Jesus to be crucified. Know that 
the spirit of Jesus is always upon the earth, and that often, when you 


THE LAST IHCARHATION. 


17 


least expect him, he approaches you. Do not say, what right has such 
a one to teach us ? It is as if you said, what right has he to love us ? 

“ Receive truth from love for the truth itself, and be not jealous of him 
who devotes himself to tell it to you. Listen not to those who seek to 
depreciate his words, by accusing his person, for the weaknesses of man 
belong to man, but the word of truth belongs to God. And you must 
know that it is so much the more divine, because it uses the voice of a 
more imperfect being, in order that you may not attach yourself to the 
man who speaks, but only to the truth which he tells you.” 

The men of the people, on hearing these words, were seized with 
respect; and, looking upon him who spoke to them, it seemed to them 
that they had already seen him before. Each of them found in him some 
resemblance to those whom he had loved, and whose affection had ren¬ 
dered his life less bitter. To some, it was the remembrance of a mother; 
to others, it was the image of a son, or of a brother, who was no longer 
in this world; all felt their hearts moved, and courage and hope were re- 
a wakened in their souls. 

Jesus worked with them until their dinner-hour, and, as they rested 
themselves to eat, he remarked that some had more, the others less; and 
he said to them: “Do you know how the Christ formerly multiplied the 
loaves to satisfy the people in the desert?” They answered him: “No; 
and we do not believe in that miracle, because it appears to us impos¬ 
sible.” 

Jesus said to them? “ Put together in common all that you have 
brought for your dinner, in order that each may have the advantage of 
what belongs to all; and you will see that your provisions will be multi¬ 
plied, for the bread of fraternal communion will be the bond of associa¬ 
tion, and the seed of future prosperity. And each of you will feel that he 
ought not to be a burden to the others, and you will be like the earth 
which receives the grain that is given to it, to render it back a hundred 
fold.” Then, having blessed the bread, he broke it, and distributed it 
among them: and he did the same with the other provisions. And he 
said to them: “ Learn what humanity can do by the labor of its hands.” 

Then each offered from his share to his brethen, and no one wished to 
receive more than he could give in return; seeing which, Jesus said to 
them: “ The kingdom of God is not far from you.” And he left them. 

“ Will you come back?” cried the workmen. “Yes,” replied he; “if 
you do as I have told you, you will soon see me again in the midst of 
you.” 

And he left them in their astonishment, not daring to communicate 
their thoughts to each other; and several said: “ If he were not so young, 
we should think the Christ had again come among us.” Because they 
did not reflect that the syirit of the Christ is immortal, and cannot grow 
old. 


FIFTH LEGEND 

THE CHILDREN OF SOLOMON. 

After that, the Christ took the dress and the figure of a workman, and, 
carrying his tools on his back and a long cane in his hand, he journeyed. 

Now, two workmen, of those who are called Companions of the 
Devoir, were travelling in the same direction. They came near him, and 

3 



18 


THE LAST IHCAENATION. 


made to him the signs of fraternity, to which Jesus replied only by the 
sign of the cross. The companions began to laugh and to mock at him; 
they even prepared to maltreat him, and they asked him in a threatening 
tone, what he meant by what he had just done. 

Jesus answered them: “ You made to me the sign of the children of 
Solomon, and I reply to you by the sign of him who was greater than 
Solomon. The cross is the square, multiplied and rendered universal. 
It is the symbol of equality before God, and of the fraternity of all. 
Solomon built only a temple of stone; and the Christ constructed univer¬ 
sal society, that living temple which cements fraternity. 

“ Why do you ask me to what devour (duty) I belong? There is but 
one duty for all the children of the Father: it is to assist each other mu¬ 
tually, and to love each other, as the Father who is in heaven watches 
over them all and loves them.” 

The workmen replied: “We do not like the sign of the cross, and no 
longer believe in the virtue which was formerly attributed to it; for bad 
priests have made of it their sign, and have abused it while they taught 
superstition and falsehood.” 

Jesus said to them: “ If brigands, while endeavoring to kill you, should 
pronounce the name of your mother, would that be a reason for no 
longer loving your mother? The priests and the pharisees used the cross 
to put the Christ to death, and their successors have wished still to use it 
for the excution of the people whom the Christ came to save. But the 
Christ, in triumphing over the world by the cross, made the very instru¬ 
ment of his execution a sign of deliverance and salvation; and that sign 
should cause bad priests and bad kings to tremble; for it is the sign of 
rallying for those whom the glorious death of the Christ, their brother, 
has rendered free. 

“ Brothers do not renounce the cross; for it is by it that you will be 
strong, and that you will conquer.” 

“Do you then despise the square of Solomon?” asked the companions 
of the devoir. 

“ The square of Solomon is the symbol of a relative equality, and its 
branches embrace only one side of the humanitary edifice; unite two 
squares together, so that one may open its branches to the side of the east 
and the other to the side of the west, and you will therewith form a 
cross.” 

The two companions, who were men of sense, admired Jesus in their 
hearts, saying to him: “We like to hear you. You are wiser than we, 
and you must teach us.” 

Jesus asked them: “ What is your religion?” 

“ My parents were Protestants,” said the first. 

“ Mine were Catholics,” said the other; “but I never go to church.” 

“ Do you know what the words Catholic Church mean?” asked the 
Christ. And as they were embarrassed for an answer, he added: “ They 
mean universal association. This is what the Christ intended to intro¬ 
duce upon the earth, and the hierarchical society of the priests was only 
an imperfect model of the true universal Church. The error of the 
priests has been in wishing to render immutable and eternal that which 
was only transitory. They have built for themselves alone a house ac¬ 
cording to the plans of the Christian architecture, and they have not 
reflected that the Church should be the house of the whole of humanity. 
This is why their house will be left to them, and they will die in it alone 


THE LAST INCAENATION. 


19 


and deserted, while humanity will construct the great universal temple, 
of which Solomon’s was formerly the first figure. 

“ The priests, in the primitive Church, were only the wise men and 
the elders to whom the people confided the presidency of their 
assemblages. Are there no wise men among you? and is there any 
necessity for you to seek the fathers of the people out of the ranks of the 
people? 

“ Reflect that the ministry of mediation between God and man is the 
work of the most perfect devotedness. If there be among you a man 
who loves truth more than life, and his brothers more than himself, that 
man is worthy to preside over you; and it is he who should explain to 
you the things that are of God. 

“ For he knows enough about religion, who knows how to love good 
and truth above all things, and his neighbor more than himself. Reli¬ 
gion was not given for the priests, but for the people; and the people are 
not the servants of the priests, but, on the contrary, it is the priests who 
should be the servants of the people.” 

Then the companions replied to Jesus: “Your words please us, how¬ 
ever new and singular they may be: but we no longer wish to have 
priests among us: for their very name excites in us abhorrence and dis¬ 
gust.” 

Jesus said to them: “ Those whom you hate on account of their name 
call themselves priests and are so no longer, for they have been punished 
wherein they have sinned. They wished to conceal the spirit of wisdom 
contained in the symbols of the doctrine, and the spirit of wisdom has 
departed from them. They wished to keep the people in ignorance and 
superstition, and now they are themselves more ignorant and more super¬ 
stitious than the lowest among the people. They have renounced lov¬ 
ing and being loved in order to make themselves feared, and now they 
are no longer feared and they are not loved. 

“ Remember what the Christ said when speaking of the doctors of the 
ancient synagogue: ‘The pharisees sit in Moses’ seat, do therefore what 
they teach you,but do not imitate their works; for they say and do not.’” 

One of the workmen then said: “Why need we go and hear hypocrites 
and liars? we much prefer to be taught by those who believe what they 
say, and who practice what they teach.” 

Then Jesus: “ That is a good thought, but know that the first Chris¬ 
tians continued to respect the old temple, even while working for the 
construction of the new Church. This is why I say to you: do not hate 
the pharisees and the doctors of the Catholic Church; leave them to their 
impotence; they can no longer do you either good or harm, because they 
have no longer either intelligence or love. 

“ This is why I say to you still further: build up the new society, the 
great universal association, the communion of all with all, and of all with 
each. Let those among you who have intelligence and devotedness be 
the fathers and the elders, to teach, to direct and to console; and you will 
thus institute a new priesthood. 

“ It is not years which make a man old in wisdom, it is thoughts and 
works. And he who has thought most wisely and acted most justly, he 
has lived the longest. Be therefore young men when action is required, 
and old men when advice is needed.” 

After these words, Jesus said no more and continued walking with 
them. Now, the two companions also kept a profound silence and asked 


20 


THE LAST INCARNATIOK. 


themselves: “Whence has this man so much knowledge and wisdom? 
For he speaks to us with authority, and seems so certain of what he says 
that we are compelled to believe him.” 

Then two other journeymen, belonging to another profession, came by 
the same road and were about to pass the three travelers. Those who 
walked with Jesus said to him: “ We shall be obliged to fight; they are 
but two and we are three, but you were not with us, and you can stand 
aside.” 

Jesus said to them: “ Why should you fight? Are those men enemies 
or malefactors? It seems to me that they are honest workmen like your¬ 
selves. What! because they are of one trade and you of another, must you 
rend each other like furious beasts! 

“ If the carpenter exterminates the stone cutter, how can he himself 
live? Does not the carpenter’s work support and strengthen the stones 
of a building? If he who makes garments triumphs over him who 
makes shoes, how shall he be shod? and if it is the shoemaker who kills 
the tailor, how shall he be clothed ? 

“ You have all need, each of the other; and you hate each other only 
because you are members of separate societies; unite your societies into a 
single one, instead of fighting, and cause universal union to take the place 
of separate associations.” 

As Jesus was still speaking, the two new comers drew near, but they 
were not willing to listen any longer, and raised their sticks to commence 
the attack. Then the two companions of the Christ stood on their de¬ 
fence, but Jesus, placing himself between them, stretched out his arms 
and said to them :“ You shall not fight, or you must strike me; for you 
are brothers; and if I cannot prevent you from doing harm I prefer to be 
your victim rather than your accomplice.” 

“Stand aside! stand aside!” cried the four journeymen, brandishing 
their canes; and as he did not stand aside, they struck, and the blood 
flowed down the face of the Christ. 

At this sight a sudden stupor paralyzed the arms of the combatants; 
the head of the wounded man seemed to be surrounded by a glory; he 
cast upon them a sad glance which penetrated to their very heart, and 
said, as he took his blood in his hands and showed it to them: “ How many 
times then shall I be obliged to die for you?” 

Then under the fresh blood which they had caused to flow, the journey¬ 
men recognized the ancient cicatrices, and the Christ, being transfigured 
before their eyes, appeared to them under the lamentable form of the 
Ecco Homo. 

They fell upon their knees; and the Christ, raising his eyes towards 
Heaven, repeated once again his sublime prayer: “ Father, forgive them 
for they know not what they do.^’ 

Then he took their hands and joined them together, saying to them: 
“ Instead of being two on one side and two on the other, be four together: 
you will be four times as strong! Meditate well upon this saying, and if 
you are intelligent, understand it.” Then, having blessed them, he dis¬ 
appeared from their eyes. 

Then the four journeymen swore not to separate before they had laid 
the foundations of universal union. And they promised to help each 
other until death, consecrating their entire life to form a union between 
the children of Solomon, of Hiram and of the other ancient architects of 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


21 


the temple, in order to induce them to work all together for universal asso¬ 
ciation, and for the ultimate formation of the great family of the children 
of the Christ. 


SIXTH LEGEND. 

THE DAUGHTERS OF MAGDALEN. 

Shortly after this, the Christ remembered the woman of Samaria 
and Magdalen the sinner, to whom many sins were forgiven because she 
had loved much. And he, who had not disdained to descend even into 
hell, to deliver the souls of those whom he had ransomed, went in the 
evening through the streets of the great city, seeking the poor sinning 
women. 

And on seeing them wander about by the light of the lamps, with a 
smile on their lips and death in their heart, with flowers on their brow and 
their feet in the mud, he wept, thinking of Mary. And he looked at 
them with ineffable sadness, at the thought that each of those unfortunates 
had a soul and a heart. 

One of them having approached him, he looked at her sorrowfully and 
said: “ My daughter, what do you desire of me.?” “ That thou wouldst 
forgive me,” replied she; for she had recognized him. 

Jesus said to her: “You know me because you have suffered much: 
poor child, what can I do for you? I can forgive you, but how can I 
enable you to forgive yourself? Did not my father create you to live 
pure and to become a mother? How then have you fallen into this hor¬ 
ribly abject condition?” 

“ Because I could no longer live, and because I had not strength 
enough to die,” Replied the poor woman, weeping. 

“ And in order to live you have condemned yourself to die,every day,” 
said Jesus to her; “what then did you find so desirable in life?” 

“Master,” returned she, “when men pay me that they may outrage 
me,it is not I who am guilty of the evil which they do to me; but if I had 
laid violent hands on myself, I should have been obliged to answer before 
God for the crime of my death.” 

“ Woman, you reason justly,” said Jesus. “ You were weak, and soci¬ 
ety did not support you: therefore you are a living accusation against it, 
and each of your humiliations shall be punished as a homicide. For each 
of those men who think they can possess you for a vile price, has had a 
mother; and he does not reflect that heaven had destined you also to be 
a mother. He has perhaps had a sister, and he does not reflect that you 
might be his sister. Sometimes he has even a betrothed; and he does not 
ask himself what he would suffer if any one should thus degrade his be¬ 
trothed. For every woman is a betrothed of humanity; and to each of 
them had God destined a husband. 

“ Withdraw therefore from me, O my poor child! for my presence does 
you harm and covers you with shame: you would wish to love me and 
you dare not look upon me, because I am the pure man and jiou are the 
poor degraded woman. 

“ No, do not look at me, poor humiliated woman; but look at my im¬ 
age nailed to the cross, and hope. For I do not break the bruised reed, 
and I do not tread under foot the still smoking flax. 



22 


THE LAST IHCAKHATION. 


“ The world despises vou, because it has made you impure, and it de¬ 
spised me because I was pure. You see then that its judgments are in¬ 
iquitous, and that they ought not to drive you to despair. 

“ Poor creature! who, because you were weak, suft'er now what would 
terrify the strongest natures! Do not fear my reproaches; I do not wish to 
add them to the regrets of your heart. The world has broken you, that 
is why I will have pity on you. When I was expiring on the cross, I 
saw at my feet Magdalen the sinner; and I was happy to die for her. 
For I love those whom the world abandons, and I bless those whom it 
outrages. 

“Depart, my daughter; and enclose your sorrow in your soul, like a 
hope. Weep inwardly, when the sad necessties of your life compel you 
to smile; for you have no chastity henceforth but m the tears of your 
heart. 

“ Never prostitute your soul, in order that your body may be purified 
by destruction; and that the remembrance of your fall may perish with 
your perishable form in the forgetfulness of the grave. The soul is im¬ 
mortal, audits sorrowful aspirations after virtue will live with it; the body 
is mortal, and the faults which come from it and are attached to it will go 
with it into death. 

“ Poor angel fallen into hell, be not therefore tired with looking to¬ 
wards heaven, and do not despair of your salvation; for those who have 
destroyed you are more criminal than you : and you would have a right to 
cry out for vengeance against them.” 

“ I forgive them,” replied the woman; “for if they were better they 
would be happier; and how could they have been good to me, when they 
do not yet know how to be good to themselves?” 

“ Go in peace, my daughter, and hope for your deliverance,” then said 
the Christ. “ You have not been virtuous, and perhaps that is the world’s 
fault more than your own; but you are good, and that belongs to your 
heart and the world cannot take it from you. God will forgive you as 
you forgive those who have injured you. Be courageous then and try 
to free yourself from vice. Let no labor repel you, for vou have suffered 
something still more severe: let no effort be too great for you; for you 
have needed many efforts to resign yourself to your abject condition. 

“Courage! my daughter, rise up and hope! let your heart be pure in 
the first place: form again a virginity in your soul and God will not 
desert you. 

“ The world will never forgive you, because, being more criminal than 
you, It has neither the right nor the generosity of forgiveness. But God 
will love you as a father loves his prodigal son, and your very faults, 
which repentance will make eternal sources of sorrow for you, will he- 
come for you expiatory suffering, and claims to the crown of martyrdom.” 

Having said these words, the Christ departed, for the poor woman 
sobbed and could no longer listen to him. 

Jesus afterwards passed before other women who did not recognize 
him, and to whom he did not speak, because they were brutified by vice 
and confuted in their abjectness, from love of disorder and hatfed of 
good. He looked upon them as diseased persons fallen into delirium 
and prayed silently for them. 

He saw others whose life was a continued drunkenness, and who intox- 
cated themselves in order to forget; and he compared them to those unfor- 


THE LAST mCAKHATION. 


23 


tunates who have lost their reason; but he pitied them the more because 
their madness was voluntary. 

But he cursed none of those women, because they were all unhappy. 
He pitied them, on the contrary, and he loved them, because no one loves 
them. 

But there were men who passed in the streets and who insulted those 
unfortunates. Jesus approached them and said to them: “You doubt¬ 
less are modest, since you insult these women who have lost their mod: 
esty. You doubtless know the sanctity of love, since you insult these 
women who sell their deplorable complaisance. You doubtless respect 
the sex of your mother and of her who is or who will be the mother of 
your children, since you thus despise these poor women, who have lost 
all their maternal dignity.” 

“What is that to you?” replied those men rudely. “We do what 
pleases us; go your ways. Are you the defender of these creatures?” 

Jesus said to them: “ If these creatures are despicable, what name shall 
be given to you, to you who degrade them? For it is of your brutality 
that they are made the servants; and if there were no men like you, there 
would be no women like them. 

“ Now, you know that, according to the law of nature, the husband is 
the head of the conjugal society, and that he answers before men even 
for the disorders of his wife. 

“ Now, I tell you that, before God, the legitimate wife of the debauchee 
is the prostitute, and that he ought to be branded before men with all 
the disorders of her whom he habitually makes his companion. 

“ Now as each man who unites himself intimately with a woman, 
makes but one with her, when you outrage these poor creatures, your 
insults fall back upon yourselves and you alone deserve them.” 

On hearing this discourse, those men were filled with confusion and 
bit their tongues with anger, but no one of them dared to insult or threaten 
Jesus, for he spoke boldly to them, and those who can insult women 
are naturally cowards. 

They murmured among themselves and stammered insults and rude 
railleries in a low voice. But Jesus turned his back upon them and de¬ 
parted. And they did not suspect who it was that had just spoken to 
them. 


SEVENTH LEGEND. 

THE CONSPIRATORS. 

At that time Jesus wished to converse with those who said they were 
devoted to the redemption of the people. But before manifesting himself 
to them, he wished to know their most secret thoughts; and making him¬ 
self present to them by the virtue of his spirit, he listened to the words 
of their hearts. 

He especially interrogated those who should be the ministers of the 
word, the men whose writings are multiplied every day like the leaves 
of the trees, and he sought for a belief and a thought at the bottom of the 
heart of those men. He saw them put on and put off their maxims like 



24 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


a livery, defend and attack the same thing by turns with the same indif¬ 
ference, for to the greater number among them nothing was true and 
nothing was false. 

He saw the fiercest defenders of the popular cause, full of contempt for 
the people; and burning with a low envy which made them the enemies 
of the great, because they themselves thirsted for riches and greatness. 
He saw them write upon their banner names which they themselves de¬ 
spised. For these knew themselves too well to have any confidence in 
each other, and they no longer believed even in themselves, for they 
doubted everything, having lost faith and not having found science: as 
some must indeed reign and others obey, they protested against obedi¬ 
ence in the hope of reigning, and each helped the other, in order to secure 
by his means; but they detested each other, and were all jealous of each 
other in the depths of their heart. 

Jesus saw them, understood them, and did not go near to speak to them 
or to manifest himself to them; for those unfortunates could neither see 
nor hear him. 

Then having turned away his eyes, he sought the men of the people 
who were assembled in secret like the Christians in the times of the Cat¬ 
acombs; there at least he saw noble hearts and generous aspiration,s but 
nowhere was there any agreement .about the choice or the employment 
of means, because the flock of the future had not yet found its shepherds. 
The greatest confusion prevaild in ideas: and the wills, instead of being 
united, were divided more and more, and opposed mutual obstacles; each 
one wished to bring forward his system, and the systems destroyed each 
other; the time of faith and of common belief seemed to be forever passed, 
and no fixed durable light as yet replaced the extinguished faith; thus 
the natural heat of souls destroyed them without producing brightness, 
and was exhausted without being communicated to other souls which 
were cold and which languished in darkness. 

Jesus assumed the appearance of a man of the people, and entering at 
evening into a low hall where were assembled some writers and working¬ 
men, who were talkhig of reform without coming to any understanding, 
because the emissaries of the political parties agitated them in a con¬ 
trary condition. 

Jesus then rose in the midst and said to them: “ For what purpose 
have you come here? Have you come to dispute about words which 
you do not understand, and to listen to men who seek to glorify them¬ 
selves? Have you come to build up or to destroy? To unite or to di¬ 
vide? To deliberate or to dispute? 

“ Mistrust those men who, under pretext of zeal for your interests, 
bring to you only bitter recriminations; those who speculate upon prin¬ 
ciples in favor of such or such a name; those who address themselves 
only to hateful and jealous passions. Banish from among you those who 
speak incessantly of themselves and who underhandedly calumniate your 
friends and your defenders.” 

At these words, there was a great tumult in the assembly, a part of 
those who were there, shouted in order to drown the voice of the Christ, 
and calling him traitor and false brother, they wished to drive him out. 

Then Jesus said; Bad passions betray themselves. Let the men of 
good faith, the friends of good order be silent and remain calm; they will 
be recognized by this sign, and the meeting will be purified.” 


THE LAST INCARHATIOISr. 


25 


More than half the assembly then seated themselves and kept silence; 
while the agitators, furious at seeing themselves thus recognized, burst 
out into threats and insults. Jesus remained seated in the midst of the 
honest workmen, who kept calm and silent like him, and they preserved 
a deep silence. Seeing which, those men who were violent and of bad 
faith, left the assembly. 

Then Jesus said to those who remained: “Brothers, when the first 
Christians met in secret assemblages, it was not to dispute, but to com¬ 
mune together in the spirit of fraternity and of justice. You suffer 
greatly, I know; society is harsh and unjust towards you, I know that 
also; but you form a part of society. Be good towards each other, and 
society will be less harsh; be yourselves just in the first place, and injus¬ 
tice will be diminished. Know that disorder always produces a greater 
disorder, and that evil never remedies evil. 

“ Do you know why the wicked rich oppress you.? It is because they 
do not recognize you as their brothers, having had the misfortune to for¬ 
get God and the teachings of the Christ. They are unjust, because they 
have no other moral law than their avarice and their pride: beware there¬ 
fore of pride and avarice: for these vices produce in their conflicts only 
the alternations of tyranny and slavery. In order to be free, you must 
first be liberated from all the bad passions which enslave the heart and 
deprave the understanding. Do not conspire in darkness against men; 
conspire in broad daylight against vice. 

“ Exercise a fraternal watchfulness over each other; reprimand in your 
meetings the intemperate, the brutal, and the idle; give public eulogiums 
to labor, to devotedness, and to correct morals. The people will be 
strong when they are good and just. Let them cease to be minors, and 
their guardian will be compelled to render his accounts to them. Lions 
are not harnessed to the cart, and eagles are not fed in the poultry yard 
with domestic fowls. 

“ But so long as you are neither wise enough nor strong enough to 
reign yourselves, obey your kings and your chiefs, and pray to God that 
he will preserve them for you, because the people always suffer in revo¬ 
lutions and never gain by a change of masters.” 

The workmen, hearing this, murmured among themselves and said: 
“ Is not this man an emissary of the government? ” And they began to 
retire, one after the other. 

Jesus, continuing his discourse, said to them: “ How can you be free, 

if you know not how to discern the true from the false, and the good 
from the evil? How can you get out of slavery, if you calumniate those 
who love you, and if you refuse to hear those who tell you the truth? 

“ Because the government is m fact stronger than you, and because I 
advise you not to crush yourselves by rushing against it, you say that I 
am an emissary of your enemies! And when I trace out for you the 
path by which you can attain the royalty of free men, you accuse me of 
being a servant of the government! You see well that you are not yet 
in a condition to reign, for you wish'to be flattered and not to be taught: 
you have the usual weakness of tyrants.” 

When the Christ had made an end of speaking, he looked around him, 
and saw that all had departed, excepting three young men, who listened 
to him with respect. 

4 


26 


THE LAST mCAENATIOH. 


Jesus said to them: “You are then the only ones who have under¬ 
stood me? Well, go now and announce to your brethren what you 
have heard, and do not despair of the salvation of humanity. 

“ First free the world which is in yourselves; be men, and you will be 
free! For all slavery is voluntary. No one can degrade those who are 
not willing to be degraded. God himself, with all his power, could not 
compel the will of a little child.” 

“ We wish to be free!” then said the three young men, with energy. 

“ Well, persevere in that will, and you shall be more than kings,” 
replied Jesus, 

And they separated. 


EIGHTH LEGEND. 

THE NEW ADULTEROUS WOMAN. 

At that time Jesus clothed himself with all the majesty of the perfect 
man; and as he had formerly awaited the Samaritan woman at the edge 
of Jacob’s well, so he \vent and seated himself in a retired spot of a public 
garden. 

Now, a woman who had seen him pass had followed him at a distance, 
and she approached him in order to see if he would not speak to her; 
but Jesus did not even look at her. 

Now, that woman was deeply agitated in her heart, and could not turn 
away her eyes from that radiant figure. She recognized the Christ be¬ 
cause she had seen him in all her dreams, and she ardently desired that 
he would look at her; but she did not dare to speak to him the first, be¬ 
cause she feared his contempt. 

Nevertheless the Lord had pity bn the anguish of the woman, and 
praying inwardh^ to his Father, he said: “O my God! deliver women 
from adultery, in order that the generations may no longer be poisoned 
at their source! O my God! have pity on the tears of my mother, who 
]u ays for the liberation of mothers, and restore chastity to this corrupted 
world! ” 

Then, addressing the woman, with a gentle and grave countenance, he 
asked lier if she wished to speak to him. 

The woman replied, blushing, that she had nothing to say to him; but 
she remained near him, confused, trembling, and yet charmed at having 
heard his voice. 

“Well, I, my daughter, have something to say to you,” said the 
Saviour; “ sit down by my side.” 

“ I cannot,” said the woman, “ for I fear that my husband may 
see me.” 

“ Then you are doing something wrong?” asked Jesus. 

“ Perhaps so,” replied the woman, “ and yet it seems to me that I have 
confidence in y ou, and the feeling which retains me by your side in spite 
of myself is very pure. I do not think I have ever seen .you before, and 
already it seems to me that I have known you for a long while, and that 
you have always been good to me. I feel no shame at letting you see the 
condition of my heart, I only fear your contempt, for I am the wife of 
another.” 



THE LAST INCAEHATION. 


27 


“ And that other, have you loved him? ” asked Jesus. 

“ Never,” replied the woman, casting down her eyes. 

“ And how could you promise fidelity to him whom.you did not love? 
For fidelity is only the voluntary guarantee of a mutual love. You 
therefore deceived a man who loved you, by pretending to give to him 
that which was not yours, and which could never be his? ” 

“ He himself did not love me,” again murmured the woman. “ He 
married me for the sake of the money which my parents gave him with 
me, in exchange for his name and his credit,” 

“ And thus you became adulterous?” said the Christ, looking at her. 

“Oh! no, never!” returned she earnestly. “To-day is the first time 
that an invincible attraction has made me speak with freedom to another 
man; but now, were it not for the confidence and the respect with which 
your physiogomy inspires me, I should not have approached you. I 
knew well that you would despise me,” added she, bowing her head, and 
the tears flowed from her eyes. 

“Woman,” said the Christ to her, “you are not culpable for having 
loved, but indeed for having given yourself to him whom you did not 
love. Know that God had betrothed you from your birth by the attrac¬ 
tions which he placed in the depths of your heart. He whom you were 
to love, he whom who dreamt of, he whose image I recall to you, he 
alone was your true husband, and during his absence you were sold like 
a slave, and you contracted an adulterous alliance with another. 

“ Do you no longer remember the words of the Christ? The man 
shall forget his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife. 
This means that conjugal affection shall be more tender than filial love, 
and shall prevail over all the affections. For God from the beginning 
has predestined man and woman to be united. What God has joined to¬ 
gether let man never put asunder! 

“But tell me, woman: is it by bargains of traffic and of avarice that 
God unites wills, and do you believe that the demon of riches can accom¬ 
plish the work of holy and legitimate love? Does not man separate 
what God wishes to unite, when he sells his daughters and when he 
buys a wife? 

“ I do not reproach you, my daughter, for you were not free, and ac¬ 
cording to the laws which they have made, you were compelled to obey. 
Resistance would have been death to you; and all souls have not the 
courage of martyrdom. 

“ Do not curse your parents, but pray God to forgive them, for they 
prostituted you to their interest and their pride. 

“ Know only that on the day when what men call your marriage was 
accomplished, the angels of heaven veiled themselves with their wings 
and wept over you, for you had become an adulterous woman. You 
were unfaithful "to the sweet dream of your heart, you abjured the alliance 
hidden in your soul, you outraged divine maternity.” 

“ Spare "me!” said the woman in a supplicating voice, and clasping her 
hands. 

“Woman,” returned Jesus, “ I have already told you: it is not I who 
accuse you; it is you who might accuse the world. 

“ For all those who consent to evil commit evil, and all those who are 
the slaves of riches, all those who esteem gold more than liberty and 
more than love, all those who are indignant at this venality of the 
world, and who do not protest loudly against the universal corruption; 


28 


THE LAST IHCAKHATION. 


those who do not think of it and who are satisfied with laughing at it; 
all these are the accomplices of him who bought you and of those who 
sold you. 

“ This is why, if no one formerly had the right to cast the first stone at 
the unfaithful wAman, because all had sinned, at this day the woman 
whom they have made adulterous can rise up before the throne of God 
and accuse them in her turn with sobs and tears. And I tell you in truth 
that each of her tears will be equal in value to a drop of the blood of the 
Redemption, and that her sobs will impose silence before God on the 
clamors of hell!” 

Then he added in a gentler voice: “Woman, the human word is 
sacred as the divine word, and the slave who has sold himself has no 
longer the right to flee; otherwise he wo'uld be perjured and a robber. 
Let the faithfulness of your word expiate the unfaithfulness of your 
heart. 

“Do not reproach yourself for loving me: you may do so, for soon 
you will see me no longer, and you will seek me in your dreams. 

“ I am the husband of isolated souls; I am the man of the future! 

“It is I who am the betrothed of virgins, and the consoler of widows! 

“ I am the husband promised by the celestial poetry of Solomon to the 
woman purified by trial and freed by sorrow! * 

“Let us love each other, poor slave! and be resigned while awaiting 
your freedom; but if you have daughters, never sell them, and do not 
sacrifice them to alliances which heaven looks upon with horror. 

“ Labor for the destruction of sin, in order that God may forgive your 
fault; and if you wish again to see my image, in order to encourage you 
to suffer—look upon the cross.” 

At this last word, the woman was seized with affright, and, raising her 
eyes, she saw no one. 

She fell upon her knees, by the side of the bench where she had seen 
the Saviour seated, and clasping her hands, she wept bitterly. 

Several men then ajDproached without her perceiving them: it was 
her husband, who was looking for her, accompanied by several wit¬ 
nesses, and who said to them, pointing at her: “You see that she has 
become crazy; you will testify for me.” 

Then they seized her, and she allowed herself to be led away without 
understanding what they wished; but when she saw that her husband 
was about to put her in confinement, in order to get rid of her, she 
thought that she would, at least, be delivered from adultery and prostitu¬ 
tion: she preferred to be the victim of that man, rather than to continue 
his accomplice, and when she was questioned, she replied that she had 
seen the Christ, and related all that the Saviour had said to her. Then 
the physicians and the judges decided that she had lost her reason, and 
she was shut up in a hospital for the insane. There she consoled herself 
by thinking that she should not be a mother, and that she should bring 
no daughters into the world: she was buried alive in that terrible tomb, 
and of all that had belonged to her, she asked only for her mother’s 
crucifix. 


THE LAST IHCAKNATION. 


29 


NINTH LEGEND. 

THE HOUSE OF THE INSANE. 

At that time Jesus, wishing to compel the insanity of the age to con¬ 
demn itself by declaring its aversion to wisdom, entered into a house 
where a large number of persons were assembled, and, raising his voice, 
he spoke thus to them: 

“ For what purpose have you come together in this house, when your 
minds are divided, and when your hearts separate more and more from 
each other? Why do you salute each other with a gracious countenance, 
when, at the bottom of your heart, you desire each other’s death?” 

And, as they murmured at these words, Jesus added: “Who is there 
among you that would not take the fortune and the dignities of another, 
if he could do so with impunity? Now, to wish to strip one’s brother of 
that which makes his life, is not this to desire his death? 

“What do you seek with so much trouble? What do you conceal 
with so much care? What do you desire as the reward of so many 
efforts? Your wear out your life, you brutalize your soul, you destroy 
your heart, to attain an object which you yourselves do not understand. 
You seek happiness at the expense of happiness; you sacrifice your life 
to live; you devour your entrails to appease your hunger.’ 

“ Your whole life is a lie; you voluntarily imprison yourselves in con¬ 
straint and ennui; you sell your eternity to buy death, and you resemble 
the sick man in delirium, who dreams of journeys or of pleasures during 
the exhaustion of his agony. 

“ What good does it do you to gain the universe while you lose your 
soul? Is a corpse happy, then, upon a throne? and when you have no 
longer either belief or love, of what use to you is the homage of men 
whom you despise, and the attentions of those poor women whom you 
do not love and who do not love you? 

“ Is not vainglory a derision to him who has raised himself by crawl¬ 
ing? and can he believe himself superior to those who debase themselves 
to-day as he debased himself yesterday? What can be done with riches 
by the man who has killed his heart, and reduced himself to animal life? 
Are not the necessities of animals limited, and does not every excess carry 
with it its lassitude and its punishment? 

“ Go, then, servants of this world, sacrifice yourselves for this ungrate¬ 
ful master; abjure everything that makes the joy of the soul; renounce 
everything that makes the life of the heart; then, when you shall be such 
as you must be to reign over it, you will yourselves reject with disgust 
what it will have left you of corpse-like existence, and extinction will be 
your last hope.” 

As Jesus spoke thus, the master of the house sent for his servants to 
drive him out; “ for,” said he, “ a crazy man has entered our saloon, and 
his craziness iDeing very sad, he must be led away, and placed in the 
hands of the police, in order that he may be confined in a house of the 
insane.” 

But Jesus, understanding their thought, said to them: “ \ ou send me 
to the house of the insane, and I leave you in your own house. 

“ Henceforth you will not imprison me any more than you can im¬ 
prison thought." I am no longer a man; I am-the type and the ideal of 


30 


THE LAST IHCARJSTATIOH. 


the human form. Violence can never seize upon me to make me die. 
You will not confine me,.you whom the insanity of riches binds with 
chains of gold; but if you remember my words and if you recover your 
senses, my word will make you free.” 

As he said this, all who were there shrugged their shoulders and 
laughed; and the servants, having approached to seize him, dared not 
lay hands on him. But Jesus went out and departed from that assembly. 

He walked through the city, and saw men who worked from morning 
to night in order to live, and who had never asked themselves of what 
use life could be. 

Others, who lived by fraud and shameful trafficking, extinguishing the 
last spark of their soul every day in infamy, as if they had hired them¬ 
selves to corruption and death. 

He saw others, the whole of whose existence was a lie; and when he 
sought what truth they could conceal with so much care and so much 
difficulty, he found none. 

Some loved without being loved, and, on that very account, persisted 
in loving more; others prided themselves in loving nothing, and they 
stupefied themselves in order that they might not see themselves alone, 
for they were afraid of themselves. 

There were some who drank and sang in order to swallow their tears 
and to conceal their sobs. 

Others ran about at night, disguised in strange habiliments; they met 
in vast halls illuminated by brilliant lights; there they insulted each 
other with a laugh, assembled by chance, danced, stamped, shouted, 
rushed together pell-mell. There were prepared prostitution and de¬ 
bauchery; there youth rapidly grew old; there intellect was extinguished 
and lost forever. This was called diversion. Mothers permitted their 
sons to go there, and men often themselves conducted thither women 
whom they pretended to love. 

In all that great city, in fine, the least wicked and the most wise were 
those who lived like animals. The others were demons. 

Jesus then said to himself: “All these men are devoid of sense, and 
they confine in a pretended house of the insane those who do not think 
like them. I will therefore go into the house of the insane and will 
there seek for wisdom.” 

And as he is the physician of souls, he took the appearance of a physi¬ 
cian, and went to the hospital for the insane. 

The first whom he met there said to him: “ I am a king.” And 

Jesus said : “ Many other men pretend the same thing. The only differ¬ 
ence between them and this one is, that their peculiar fantasy is conta¬ 
gious, and that they find a people to believe them.” 

Another then approached and said: am God !” “All the wise 

men of the age say the same thing,” replied Jesus. “ Why then do they 
consider you insane?” 

“ It is because I am not willing to adore them,” replied the crazy man; 
“ being unable and unwilling to adore any other than myself.” 

.“ They are all like you,” said Jesus to him; “only they do not say it, 
and pretend to adore others in order to be adored in their turn.” 

“They feel then very plainly that they are not God, and they pretend 
to be God in spite of their own conscience,” replied the crazv man tri¬ 
umphantly. “ They have therefore confined me from envy and because 
I alone, among them all, vyas wise! ” 


THE LAST INCARNATION.' 31 

“ No, but they were more insane than you,” said Jesus, “ and they are 
so still.” ^ 

There came another and said: “ I am not God, but I wish to do what 
God has not yet done; I wish to secure the happiness of men.” 

Jesus looked at him with a melancholy air and said: “ Do you know 
what it costs and how much time is required to succeed? ” 

Trouble and time are nothing,” replied the insane man. “ Truth is 
a seed which germinates slowly, but which infallibly bears its fruit. I 
have discovered the two great laws of nature: the unity of substance 
and the harmony of the movement which modifies it. That movement 
is the tr.usic of God which vibrates by octaves; the highest notes corre¬ 
spond with the lowest by innumerable scales of which analogy is the 
key. Let man understand the work of God, and imitate it in his social 
arrangements. This is the realization of the Gospel and the salvation 
of the world.” 

Jesus replied to him: “Temples are still being built. I would that 
the words you have just uttered could be deeply engraved on a tablet of 
brass, and that tablet be buried under the foundation of the last church 
that shall be built. When it shall be brought to light some day, men 
will perhaps understand what you have just said; but if you continue to 
talk thus, you will die here, and no one in the world will be interested 
in you during your life or will remember you after your death.” 

“ Excepting God,” said the insane man. 

“And myself,” added the Christ, and he clasped the hand of the poor 
insane man. 

Then he approached another who had been chained, because he was 
considered dangerous. This one wept with indignation and repeated: 
“ They have disposed of me and I did not belong to them; I have labored 
and they have consumed the fruits of my labor; they have eaten my flesh 
and my blood. The earth belongs to God, who loans it to all his chil¬ 
dren, and they say: ‘The earth belongs to us!’ And because those 
brigands are the strongest, they make the children of God die of hunger! 
The robbers possess the world;, and of their robbery they have made the 
basis of their laws and their morality. Oh! if the poor should one day 
be tired of suffering and should unite for vengeance! ” 

“ Hold your tongue,” then cried the hoarse voice of a keeper to the 
furious man, “ hold your tongue, or you shall be gagged again.” 

“ Will that prove that you and your masters are not robbers and assas¬ 
sins?” cried the insane man, with still increasing excitement. 

“ It will prove that you must hold your tongue,” said the keeper; and, 
with the assistance of two or three of his fellows, he approached the crazy 
man and gagged him with the greater facility because his feet and his 
hands were fastened to rings of iron. 

lesus passed near him and pacified him by a look, but he did not speak 
to him, for there is always a kind of insult in the words which are ad¬ 
dressed to one who cannot answer; but he said to the keeper: “It is 
by embittering this man with cruel treatment that you make him furious. 
Be more humane towards him, and his poor heart will be pacified; for I 
tell you in truth that his madness is only the love of justice carried to 
extreme, and the more he is tormented, the more dangerous and 
incurable will his malady become. 

“ Only pray to God that it may not be contagious, and may not spread 
among the people, for then there would be a horrible convulsion, like 


32 


"THE LAST IJSrCAENATION. 


that of the last judgment, and heaven and earth would be shaken 
by it.” 

Having said these things, Jesus stretched out his hand over those poor 
suffering heads, and he spoke in secret to all those broken hearts. 

Then they forgot for a moment their miseries and their furies; they 
thought they heard voices which came from heaven. Some wept, and 
their tears did them good; others, more happy, fell asleep and dreamt 
that they were dead. 


TENTH LEGEND. 

THE HEIRS OF PILATE. 

There was at that time a merchant who passed for a model of integ¬ 
rity and justice; the strictest probity had always governed him in his 
transactions; he never received more than was due to him, and was con¬ 
tented, for his profit, with what was conformable to the usual laws of 
trade, and authorized by custom. 

All his fellow merchants laughed at him and predicted his speedy ruin. 
Nevertheless, contrary to their expectation, not only was he not ruined, 
but he prospered and grew rich. 

He was quite intelligent in matters of business, but there his genius 
stopped; he did not wish to do evil, but neither did he know how to do 
good. He had wished to make for himself a good reputation* in order 
that he might afterwards esteem himself according to the reputation he 
should have made, for he needed the opinion of others in order to regu¬ 
late his own, like persons who have a watch and cannot tell the hour by 
the sun. 

Now, this man, who knew not how to judge himself, was called upon 
to judge others, because he had money. He therefore went to the tribu¬ 
nal, and listed to the arguments in the cause as well as he could. The 
case was as follows: 

A woman who was intelligent and of an elevated genius, yielding to 
the corruption of the age and prostituting herself to the attraction of 
riches, had married before men one whom, before God, she could never 
love. 

At the moment of undergoing the profanation of her modesty, she had 
a horror of her fault and refused what was required of her. 

Having arrived at the house of the man whom she ought never to 
have called her husband, she confessed to him her remorse and her dis¬ 
gust, asked of him in mercy to let her escape, and offered to him, in ex¬ 
change for her liberty, all that she possessed in the world. She was not 
allowed to depart, she was kept as a captive, and he whom she could not 
look upon without disgust at last compelled her to yield to what he 
thou^ght he could call his right. The wife resigned herself, but, after 
some time, the husband was attacked by strange pains and died. 

It was supposed that the woman must have hated that man enough to 
attempt his life; it was believed that she might have become criminal 
from despair, so much was she known to have suffered. Besides, the 
superiority of her intellect had made enemies of those whom envy made 
er oppressors, and she was accused of the most cowardly of crimes. 



THE LAST INCAKJSLVTION. 


33 


That was alleged against her which should have justified her; the 
indications which accused her were so grossly evident that they betrayed 
a foreign hand. Besides, had the victim been really poisoned? Poison 
was found everywhere, except in the body; science doubted and contra¬ 
dicted itself, but the morality of the world has also its fanaticism: it was 
pretended that if this woman should be acquitted, all family and social 
bonds would be broken. It was then that the honest merchant of whom 
we have spoken was called, with several other inhabitants of the same 
city, to decide upon the fate of the accused. 

Not daring to condemn her absolutely, when so many reasons were 
presented in her favor, nor to acquit her, because they believed society 
threatened with so serious a danger, those men dared to decide that the 
unfortunate was culpable, but that with her crime were connected cir¬ 
cumstances which diminished its horror. 

They did not think that if the crime had been committed, the most cow¬ 
ardly hypocrisy had prepared it, the blackest perfidy had consummated it, 
the most audacious perversity had denied it, by making a jest of every thing 
that is sacred in heaven and upon earth; and, by a contradictory decision, 
human justice seemed, in these unheard of circumstances, to condemn 
innocence and to acquit guilt. 

The virtuous merchant returned home with a quiet heart, after having 
co-operated in this judgment; still, he dared not embrace his wife, and 
his children seemed to him sad when they came to meet him. 

However, he took his meal as usual, but involuntarily shuddered several 
times when his wife offered him drink. At night, he retired early; and, 
when he was alone in his chamber, he was suddenly seized with fear, for 
it seemed to him that he heard some one walking behind him, and he 
knew that no one could have entered the chamber. 

Then he turned round trembling, and saw near him the Christ, who 
looked upon him with a sad and severe countenance. The Christ ap¬ 
peared to him such as he was formerly seen before Pilate, clothed in the 
white robe which Herod had caused to be thrown over him, his face 
furrowed with blood and with tears, his arms bound, and his hands tied 
in the knots of a disgraceful rope. 

“ I come,” said he to the merchant, “ to be judged again by you, for 
half the world have protested against my condemnation, while the other 
half still say that I was a criminal. 

“ You who dare to affirm when others doubt, I come to ask of you if you 
approve the sentence of Pilate? of that judge who thought he could 
wash his hands with water, after having bathed them perchance in inno¬ 
cent blood? 

“Unfortunate! you see the knife suspended over a head, and, accord¬ 
ing to your feeble intellect, when reason dares not determine, you decide 
that the knife must fall, and you pronounce the fatal word, without ever 
asking yourself if society be not solidary in the crimes of its unhappy 
children, and if, in passing that sentence of death, you did not condemn 
yourself. 

“ But these thoughts disturb you in spite of yourself, and arise in your 
bosom unconsciously to you; doubt causes the sentence to expire on your 
lips: you condemn and you excuse at the same time; you say yes and no 
in the same breath, and the judgments you venture to deliver resemble 
tfie blind blows of a confused assassin, who turns away his head and 
strikes at random.” 

5 


34 


TIIP] LAST INCARNATION. 


“ Master,” said the juryman trembling, “why do you address me alone, 
when so many others do like me and think they act conscientiously.^” 

“ Because you have the reputation of a just man, above all the others,” 
said Jesus to him, “and I knock at that door which I think will be 
opened.” 

“ But what must I do. Lord?” asked the merchant, hiding his face in 
his hands. 

“ Never decide unfavorably when you can doubt,” said the Christ, “ and 
impose upon yourself the duty of saving a man every time the sentence 
shall have condemned one. For I tell you in truth, that my Father, will 
require of you an account of all the victims of society, if, in the place of 
the heads which shall fall, you do not present to him joyous and grate¬ 
ful heads. Each time, theielor, that you shall help to send food to 
the scaffold, snatch a victim from poverty, for he alone has a right to 
take away life who can give or restore it. He who kills without sav¬ 
ing, resembles the evil genius of Cain, who is the father of all homi¬ 
cides. If man wishes to be a judge like unto God, let him therefore be 
a Saviour like him.” 

“ Lord,” replied the juryman, “ I have often given alms, and have 
never refused bread to him who asked it of me.” 

“ Therein you have done well,” said the Christ; “but that is not 
enough; you are rich, and in that quality you should be the faUier of the 
poor; you are a judge, and in that terrible function you have perhaps 
made ophans. Now, a father owes himself to his family, and he who 
has made orphans ought to adopt them.” 

“ How shall I know them? and how can I take care of them? My 
whole property perhaps would not be enough.” 

“ The unhappy and the orphans are brothers,” said the Saviour, “ and 
whatever you’ shall do for the first you meet will be counted to you as 
an acquittance towards the others. Do what you can, and you will have 
accomplished all justice. Let the tears of gratitude purify your hands, 
perhaps dyed with the blood of the innocent, and the martyrs themselves 
will pray and will suffer for you, and you shall be saved by the virtue of 
the blood that is shed, as those of my executioners who believed and 
loved, were saved by my cross.” 


ELEVENTH LEGEND. 

THE REPROBATES AND THE ELECT. 

After having said these things, the Christ was moved by the sufferings 
of those who die unjustly condemned, and he felt that from his whole 
heart, full of mercy and forgiveness, overflowed an immense love and an 
infinite blessing for those poor souls who depart alone and desolate after 
having been cursed and rejected by the society of men. 

Then he remembered the crowd which had cried out against him with 
one voice: “ Crucify him!” and the pharisees who had laughed and wao-- 
ged their heads while they insulted his agony, and the despairing eroan 
which had at that moment escaped from his heart: “ My God! my God! 
why hast thou forsaken me?” Then he transported himself in spirit to 
the confines of the visible world, to that wide extended desert hardly 



THE LAST INCAKNATION. 


35 


lighted by a doubtful twilight, where in a terribly silence wander those 
souls which seek their way. 

There, in the midst of a plain, the mute and shifting soil of which 
seems formed of the ashes of the dead, he found two gates formerly 
built by the power of the first pontiffs; between the two gates sat a mo¬ 
tionless old man, who seemed no longer to see or to hear anything. It 
was the image of him to whom it was formerly said: “Thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock will I build my church.” 

But the rock, formerly living, had become inert and cold, like the 
statues which pray upon tombs. 

Before the two gates pressed a crowd of undecided and terrified souls; 
for the figure of stone held two keys in its hand; but it could no longer 
move its hand, and none could take the keys from it in order to open the 
•gates. 

When the Christ appeared in the midst of the souls, radiant and with 
his cross in his hand, they all prostrated themselves, pressing around him 
like an immense flock. 

The Christ approached the image of stone, and easily took from it the 
Icey of heaven; nevertheless, he could not use it to open the gate, for, by 
covering it with gold and silver, it had been falsified. 

As to the key of he’l, not being able to take it from the hand of the 
statue, Jesus broke it; then he touched the two gates by turns with his 
cross, and they opened of themselves. 

Then he seated himself near the gate of hell, because that alone is dan¬ 
gerous to men, and the gate of heaven needs not to be guarded. 

In fact, the arms of God are always open to his creatures; the laws 
which he has given to them are laws of love, which should draw them 
to him, and not drive them away. If he threatens, it is a paternal warn¬ 
ing, and he wishes to turn them from evil, because he is anxious for 
their happiness. 

Jesus therefore stretched out his cross to close the passage to those de¬ 
spairing souls who sought the road to hell. Those who believed them¬ 
selves most culpable, presented themselves the first; they were those 
unfortunates who had suffered so much in life as to kill themselves. 

A woman was on her knees before the Saviour, and she said: “ I en¬ 
dured life long and sorrowfully while my children had need of me, but I 
afterward had need of their assistance, and the labor of my poor daughter 
was not enough for her support and mine; I had a son who had devoted 
himself to the service of the altar, but at the moment of receiving the 
last orders, he confessed that he loved, and thy ministers rejected him! 
Obliged then to live by the work of his hands, when he had never learnt 
to work, his own misfortunes were enough for him; and I voluntarily 
killed myself, in order to relieve my children from the burden of my old 
age.” 

The Christ did not at first answer this woman; he wept. 

Then he said to her with gentleness: “You are not the author of your 
death; those who destroyed the future of your son, shall answer for it in 
your stead. Enter into the peace of your God, for your devotedness has 
expiated your sin.” 

And he showed to the poor woman the gate of heaven; but she was 
not willing to enter, “ for,” said she, “ I await my son, who still suffers 
upon the earth, and who will perhaps die sadly like myself, cursed by a 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


o() 

Church which he did not wish to deceive, and abandoned by a religion 
which he loved more than his life and than mine.” 

A man afterwards presented himself and said to the Lord: “I was not 
afraid of life; I loved its combats and its trials; but I saw that I could not 
live without degrading my mind and my heart. I was a writer without 
fortune, and I had not the sad courage to barter the sacred gift of elo¬ 
quence; but poverty would perhaps have weakened my courage, and by 
degrees have debased my soul, and I did not wait for it.” 

“ Why did you despair.^ ” said the Christ. “ Suffering never debases 
the strong.” 

“ Lord, I was weak, inasmuch as I feared.” 

“ Remain, therefore, at the gate of heaven until the time assigned for 
your trials shall be accomplished, for it is not just that the workman 
should rest before he has finished his work. Nevertheless, there is 
this of good in you, that you feared debasement more than death, and your 
sacrifice will live in the remembrance of God.” 

Others had killed themselves from despairing love, and the Christ did 
not permit them to rush into hell, where love can never enter; but 
neither could they find rest in heaven except with those whom they 
loved, and they must seek or wait for them. 

And the Christ said: “ It is not the poor, despairing soul that should 
be condemned, but those who allow the poor soul to despair. It is not 
the loving and desolate hearts that must be accused, but those who sepa¬ 
rate what God intended to join together. 

“ Therefore my Father will be less rigorous towards all these poor souls, 
than towards those of the scribes, the pharisees, the doctors of the law, 
and the moralists without heart. For the disowned of the world are the 
elect of heaven, and the elect of the world will be disowned in the king¬ 
dom of my Father.” 

After those who had committed suicide, came those women who were • 
<loubly dead, for they had lost their modesty before losing their life. 

One of them, hiding her face, said to the Lord: “ I was only a child 
when my mother sold me. I grew up in shame and in sorrow, weeping 
over my purity as a fallen angel must weep over heaven; but I never 
abandoned my mother, though she no longer deserved that sacred name. 

I never cursed her, and I died of the.pri vat ions which I imposed on my¬ 
self for her sake.” 

“ Rise, my daughter,” said the Christ to her, “go and take your Seat 
among the virgins and the martyrs.” 

Now there were at the entrance of the gate of heaven some austere 
souls, whose life had been passed in the practice of a scrupulous devotion, 
and those souls murmured at the clemency of the Saviour, and no longer 
wished to enter heaven when they saw that sinning souls were admitted 
there. 

Jesus said to them: “ It is not I whocondemn you, but your pride has 
judged you. vSince you no longer wish for heaven, where my clemency 
adniits your brothers, the gate of hell isopen, and I will not close it 
against you.” 

Thus among those who judged themselves worthy of hell, Jesus 
found many elect for heaven; and not one of those who thought them¬ 
selves worthy of heaven was found pure enough to be admitted there. 


THE LAST INCAKNATIOH. 


37 


They were therefore sent into the lower circle of trials, into that fur¬ 
nace of life militant where fire purifies souls. 

Now, the fire which burns souls to save them is God’s eternal love, 
which is the peace of holy souls and the punishment of the wicked. 


TWELFTH LEGEND. 

THE SERMON ON THE PLAIN. 

At that time the workmen went out from the great city and assembled 
in a neighboring plain, and they said: “We work hard during the long 
hours of day, and we can hardly get a piece of bread to carry home to 
our children at night; our wives are compelled to work like ourselves, 
and life fails them at the same time with courage and hope. We build 
the houses of the rich, and we know not where to lay our head; we 
weave the stufF of their splendid garments, and we are naked; we sow and 
we reap for them, and we have no wherewithal to prevent us from dying 
of hunger. Let us die therefore if necessary, but let us work no longer 
for false brothers. The time will come when our strength will fail us, 
when early old age, or the disgraceful diseases which attack poverty 
will paralyse us, and then no one will come to our assistance, and we 
shall be compelled to die still more miserably, and after having suffered 
still longer.” 

To this others answered: “ Doubtless we have the right to stop 

working, and to die; but can we kill our wives and our children? Can 
we condemn them to the horrible suffering of hunger, while we have arms 
and a heart? ” 

“ What shall we do then?” cried all the voices together, while fists 
clenched in suffering and in anger were raised in threatening gestures 
above the heads of the whole crowd. ' 

“ Death to those who prevent us from living!” cried a voice, which 
was followed by a long and terrible murmur. 

“ Let us march!” cried the most excited. 

“ Stop!” said others, “where are we going? ” 

“We are going to fight against the rich.” 

“ But the rich will defend themselves, and will crush us. They have 
public order and its guarantees on their side; they have the law with 
them; and we have not even a chief to lead us.” 

Nevertheless, in the midst of the crowd, a circle was formed around a 
voung man, and several workmen, who recognized him, cried out: 
“ Make room for the apprentice carpenter! Silence! listen to him! he 
will tell us what we must do!” 

Then came the four journeymen whom the Christ had met upon the 
road,and they said to the workmen: “ Brothers, do not deceive your¬ 
selves, for this man is not what he appears to be. If he speaks, listen to 
him as vou would listen to God himself, and do all that he shall tell you; 
for under the humble appearance of a workman like ourselves, it is the 
Christ who has come again among men.” 

These words excited murmurs in the assembly. 

The greater number contradicted, others drew near from curiosity, and 
others still, cried out to Jesus: “ If thou be the Christ, prove it by mira¬ 
cles, and we will fall on our knees and worship thee.” 



38 


THE LAST INCAKNATION. 


Jesus answered: “So long as the people groan in servitude, they 
should pray upon their knees, for their very attitude is then a prayer: 
they ask God to raise them. 

“For this reason, before praying, interrogate your soul. If your 
soul is debased by servitude, if it bows before the terrors of death, if it 
still bends under the power of men like a broken reed, fall upon your 
knees and pray that God may stretch out his hand to you. 

“ But if your soul is free, if it is ready to march in order to return to 
its native land, if your will is upright, if nothing chains your motions, 
remain standing while you pray to God, for then your head and your 
heart will be nearer to heaven. 

“ Thus, therefore, standing, or on your'knees, around me who remain 
erect and who pray, let us all worship God together, for to you I must 
be only the first worshiper of God. 

“ Now, brothers, remember what I told you so many centuries ago, 
and what you have not yet understood: ‘Seek first the kingdom of God 
and his justice, and all other things shall be given unto you in addition.’ 
Why then should you be troubled about what you shall eat and what 
you shall drink? Is the kingdom of God only in food and in drink? 
Out of the kingdom of God it is impossible that all shall be fed and lodged 
and clothed. 

“ Why should you expect the fruits of the promised land out of the 
promised land? do you' believe that the desert can furnish to you the 
beautiful harvests of the fields of Israel? ” ^ 

The workmep listened attentively, but they did not yet understand, 
and one of them, raising his voice, said, “ Master, you do, in fact, speak 
in parables and images like the Christ; are we then not yet in a condi¬ 
tion to understand, and could you not express your thought more clearly ? 
What is that kingdom of God, of which you speak? Is it merely the 
paradise which the priests would have us expect after death? Is it there 
only that we can hope to be lodged and fed and clotlied? Do you in¬ 
tend to advise us to go to mass and to vespers, in order to better the con¬ 
dition of our wives and children ? ” 

Jesus answered: “Did you not learn in your childhood to ask God 
that his kingdom might come, and did you not say to him every morn¬ 
ing and evening: ‘ Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven?’ ” 

“ The kingdom of God is the reign of the will of God. Now, what 
God wills, is.harmony and justice. 

“ The kingdom of God is the reign of liberty, because the true child¬ 
ren of God can will only good, and must do what they will. But in 
order to will good, it is necessary to know what good is. Liberty can¬ 
not reign without intelligence. 

The kingdom of God is the reign of equality, because the stronger 
owe to the weaker the protection of their strength, and the wiser, instead 
of exploiting the inexperience of the less intelligent, ought to guide them 
with goodness and without humiliating them. In order to do all this, it 
is necessary to love each other a great deal. The reign of equality can¬ 
not therefore be established without the most perfect charity. And the 
fulfilling of the kingdom of God will be the reign of fraternity; when 
men will no longer say: ‘Each for himself;’ but ‘each for all and all for each.’ 

“Now, for what purpose have you come into the plain? Have you 
came to hear the word? But the time has come when truth needs no 
longer to cry upon the mountain, nor to assemble its hearers in the 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


39 


plain; the word now resembles the flowers of spring, and the leaves of 
autumn which the wind scatters every where. You have come together 
without knowing what you ought to do; this is why brute force, which 
knows what it desires, will disperse you. 

“You say that you are strong enough to attack the rich and to over¬ 
come them! But when you shall have opposed violence to violence, 
and disorder to disorder, will peace and harmony be the result? Do you 
simply wish to rob the robbers and to assassinate the assassins, in order to 
put yourselves in their places, so that others may afterwards rob and 
assassinate you? 

“ Because your house is inconvenient, will you burn or destroy it before 
having built a new one, and before even knowing upon what plan you 
will build it! 

“You ask what is the kingdom of God: it is the kingdom of peace 
and harmony. 

“ Look at the sky and see the spheres move without confusion around 
their centres! Look at the earth and consider the regular movement of 
the seasons, and the harmonious progress of vegetation and life! 

“ Do you know what attractions and what forces make so many stars 
gravitate around one and the same sun ? have you taken the compass of 
God to measure the distances and balance the various attractions? Do 
you know exactly by what degrees of heat and cold the germs are pre¬ 
served, developed and fertilized? You say to God: ‘Thy will be done 
on earth as it is done in heaven,’ and you do not think that the social 
universe has its attraction and its laws of equilibrium as well as the celes¬ 
tial universe. Now, do you know those laws? 

“Be not terrified, nevertheless, and be not discouraged,for God knows 
that of which you are ignorant. He has himself meditated the plan of 
the grand human harmony, and in order to assign to each of you his 
place, he has magnetized you as he has the stars. Know then, before 
all, that your rule is not your individual caprice, badly regulated by a fal¬ 
sified understanding, and that your law should not be the erroneous opin¬ 
ion of the world! 

“ I said ‘woe to the world,’ and I shall still repeat it, so loxig as it has 
eyes with which it does not see, and ears with which it does not hear. 

“Until this day, charity has been a sacrifice, and devotedness a martyr¬ 
dom. But why should charity, which ought to be the life of all, triumph 
only in the death of the elect? 

“ Well! I tell you now that charity is not only the life of heaven, but 
also that of the earth, and that the devotedness of heroes must become 
the happiness of the weakest children. 

“ Have I not told you that goodness and gentleness must one day 
possess the earth? 

“Have knot told you that if two or three were met together in my 
name, I would be in the midst of them? and if I said two or three, what 
shall I say of two or three hundred thousand? 

“ Have I not told you: ‘ Happy are the peacemakers, for they shall be 
called the children of God?’ 

“ If two or three hundred thousand of you have met in the plain, and 
each one has his individual thought, you are only a dangerous assemblage, 
useless for your salvation. But let a thousand men dispersed in their 
houses and in their workshops be united in the same thought, and direct 


40 


THE LAST mCARNATlOH. 


their efforts towards one and the same object: there will be a real power 
capable of leading a great people. 

“ Do you wish to be free? Be strong. 

“ Do you wish to be strong? Be united. 

“ Do you wish to be united? Be intelligent and good. 

“ Do you wish to be intelligent and good? Be just. 

“ Before asking justice then of those who oppress you, cause justice to 
reign in your midst. 

“Be not a crowd, be a people; be not a mass, be a body. And in 
order that this body may live, let charity be its soul! 

oil wish to destroy evil, then first do all the good you can; for 
good is the antidote of evil, and you can destroy evil only by opposing 
good to it. 

“ Do you know how twelve workmen conquered the world? They 
first sought the kingdom of God and his justice; they united themselves 
inseparably in the same spirit and the same love, then they dispersed 
and they were always together. 

“ I said to you: ‘ Happy are the poor in spirit,’ because the kingdom 
of intelligence had not yet come, and it was necessary to save the world 
by faith;and now I say to you: ‘ Happy are those who are rich in intelli¬ 
gence,’ because they dispose of the powers of the spirit of truth! 

“ You know that I had still many things to say to you, but you could 
not bear them then: now comes the spirit of intelligence, which will make 
you understand what I said to you and divine what I did not say to you. 
But know that the spirit of intelligence is a spirit of gentleness, and this 
is why religious symbols represent it under the form of a dove. 

“ Violence consumes and destroys itself, and all the tyrannies of the 
world can do nothing against a will which is founded on justice. 

“ Therefore, before destroying the city of men, labor to build the city 
of God. The city of God must first be realized in a people, for the peo¬ 
ple is to the city what the soul is to the body, what the body is to the 
garment. 

“ Have, therefore, all of you, one same spirit and one same will; cause 
the spirit of gentleness and of peace to reign in your houses; seek not 
the forgetfulness of your miseries in an intemperance which increases 
your misery and destroys your health; neglect no means of instructing 
yourselves; let everything that is yours be also your brethren’s, and let 
your brethren’s sufferings be also yours, and you will be the people of 
God. ^ 

“Then, I tell you in truth that your masters of to-day will be your 
servants, and you will begin to reigii over the world.” 

As Jesus finished speaking, an officer of the police and some soldiers 
appeared, summoning the workmen to disperse. 

Then all looked at Jesus, who, stretching forth his hands, said to them* 

“ Obey as I obeyed. I brought into the world a new law, and I de¬ 
stroyed the old law only by submitting myself to it, even unto death. 

“ Disperse, and carry with you the remembrance of my word: it is 
that will reunite you.” ’ 

Immediately the workmen dispersed, and the officer of police, wishing 
to give proof of his zeal, approached Jesus and ordered the soldiers to 
arrest him as one who had spoken at a seditious meeting. 


THE LAST mCAENATION. 


41 


But Jesus suddenly disappeared, so that those men looked for him on 
one side and on the other, and mutually blamed each other for having 
let him escape. 

Now^ Jesus left them in this manner, not because he had to fear a new 
passion in that spiritual and symbolic state in which he can no longer 
suffer, except in the person of his brothers, but in order to spare a new 
crime to unintelligent judges. 


THIRTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE LIVING AND THE DEAD. 

At that time, the Christ passed by the fields of tombs, and he there 
saw a young man who was on his knees and was weeping before a 
cross. 

On seeing this young man, Jesus had pity on his sorrow, and draw¬ 
ing near, said to him: “Why do you weep? ” 

He who was weeping turned round, and stretching out his hand an¬ 
swered: “ My mother has been here for three days.” 

Jesus said to him: “ Believe me, my son, your mother is not here; 
only the last vestment which she put off has been desposited here; why 
do you weep over those insensible remains? Rise up and walk; your 
mother waits for you.” 

The young man shook his head sadly and said: “ I will not rise, and I 
will not walk to go and seek death; I shall await it and it will come; and 
then, I know, I shall be again united to my mother.” 

Then the Christ: “Death awaits death, and life seeks life! Do not 
sadden the soul which has preceded you by a selfish and sterile sorrow; 
do not retard her progress towards God by your despair and inertness. 
For her love still lives in your heart, and you will not have lost her if 
you make her live worthily in you. Instead of weeping for your mother, 
resuscitate her! Do not look at me with astonishment, and do not 
think I make a jest of your sorrow! She whom you regret is near you; 
one of the veils which separated your souls has fallen; one still remains. 
And separated only by that veil, you ought ^to live for each other; you 
will work for her and she will work for you.” 

“How shall I work for her?” replied the orphan;“ she no longer 
needs anything now that she is in the ground.” , , , , • i 

“ You deceive yourself, my son, and you still confound the body with 
the clothing. In the world of spirits, she has more than ever need of 
intelligence and love. Now, you are the life of her heart, and the en¬ 
grossing thought of her mind, and she calls you to her assistance, m order 
that vou may go through life doing good, and in order that you may 
reach her with full hands when God shall reunite you. 

“ In order to have the right to rest, man must work. Now, it you do 
not work for your mother, you shackle her soul. This is why I said to 
vou: ‘ Rise up and walk,’ because the soul of your mother will rise and 
will walk with you, and you will resuscitate her in yourself if you make 
her thought and her love fruitful. 

“ She has a body upon earth, it is yours; you have a soul in heaven it 
is hers. Let that soul and that body walk together, and your mother 


6 



42 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


will live again. Believe me, my son, thought and love never die, and 
those whom you believe to be dead are more alive than you, if they think 
and love more. 

“ If the thought of death saddens and terrifies you, take refuge in the 
bosom of life; there you will find all those whom you love. The dead are 
those who do not think and who do not love; for they work for corrup¬ 
tion and corruption consumes them in its turn. Let the dead then weep 
for the dead, and live with the living! 

“ Love is the bond of souls; and when it is pure, that bond is inde¬ 
structible. Your mother precedes you, she goes towards God; butrshe is 
still chained to you; and if you slumber in torpor and in selfish sorrow, 
she will be compelled to wait for you, and she will suffer, 

“ But I tell you in truth that all the good which you shall do will be reck¬ 
oned to her soul, and that if you do evil, she will voluntarily undergo its 
penalty. This is why I say to you: If you love her, live for her.” 

Then the young man rose, and his tears ceased to flow, and he looked 
upon the face of the Saviour with astonishment, for the countenance of the 
Christ was radiant with intelligence and love, and immortality shone in 
His eyes. 

Then he took the young man by the hand and said to him: “ Come.” 

Then he led him upon a hill wHich overlooked the whole city, and he 
said to him: “ There is the real field of tombs! 

“ Below there, in those palaces which sadden the horizon, there are 
dead persons who should be wept for much more than those whose 
remains are here, for those persons do not rest. They move about in 
corruption and dispute with the worms for their food; they are like a man 
who has been buried alive. Their chest wants the air of heaven, and 
and the earth weighs heavy upon them. They are nailed in the narrow 
and miserable institutions which they have made, as in the boards of a 
coffin. 

“ Young man, who wept, and whose tears my words have dried, weep 
now and groan over the dead who still suffer! weep over those who be¬ 
lieve themselves alive and who are tormented corpses! It is to those that 
a powerful voice should cry: ‘ Come out from your tombs! ’ Oh! when 
will the trumpet of the angel sound? 

‘^The angel that must awaken the world, is the angel of intelligence; 
the angel that must save the world, is the angel of love. 

“ The light will be as the lightning which rises at the east and which is 
seen at the west at the same moment; at its voice the body of the Christ, 
which is the fraternal bread, will be revealed to all, and around the body 
which must feed them, the eagles will gather together. 

“Then the human word, freed from selfish interests, will be united to 
the divine word. And the unitary voice, resounding through the entire 
world, will be the trumpet of the angel. 

“ Then the living will rise, the living who have been thought dead, 
and who still suffer while awaiting their deliverance. Then all who are 
not dead will march forward and will go to the presence of the Lord; 
while the ashes of those who no longer exist will be swept away by the 
wind. 

“ Young man, hold yourself ready, and take care not to die! Live for 
those w’hom you love, and love those who live, and do not weep for 
those who have ascended a step higher than yourself upon the ladder of 
life; weep for those who are dead! 


THE LAST HSTCART^ATION. 


43 


“ Your mother loved you, consequently loves you still more now that 
her thought and her love are freed from the weight of earth. Weep for 
for those who do not think of you, and who do not love you. 

“For I tell you in truth, that humanity has but one body and one soul, 
and that it lives.every where that it feels itself work and sufier. 

“ Now, a member which is no longer sensible to the well-being, or 
the suffering of the other members,is dead, and must soon be cut oft.” 

Having said these things, the Christ disappeared from the eyes of the 
young man, who, after having remained for some moments motionless, 
and, as it struck by the remembrance of a dream, silently resumed the 
road to the city, saying to himself: “I will seek the living among the 
dead. I will do good to all those who sufter, by suffering with them and 
loving them, in order that the soul of my mother may know it and may 
bless me in heaven. 

“For I understand now that heaven is not far from us, and that the 
soul is to the body what the natural sky is to the earth. The sky which 
surrounds and supports the earth is filled with immensity, as the soul is 
intoxicated with God himself. 

“ And those who live in the same thought and in the same love can 
never be separated. ” 


FOURTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE DISCOURAGED PHILOSOPHER. 

At that time there was a man who had studied all the sciences, add 
had meditated upon all systems, and who had come to doubt all things. 

Being itself appeared to him a dream, because he found no sufficient 
cause. He had sought for the nature of God and had not divined it, for 
he had never loved. And his intellect had become darkened, like the 
eye of him who looks fixedly at the sun. This is why he was sad and 
discouraged. 

Jesus, who thinks of the dead and who loves to cure the blind, had 
pity upon that poor diseased intellect and that extinguished heai't; and he 
entered one evening into the solitary chamber of the philosopher. 

He was a pale man, bald, with hollow eyes, with furrowed brow and 
disdainful lips. 

He was watching alone, seated by a little table covered with papers 
and with books; but he no longer read and no longer wrote. 

Doubt bowed his head as if under a hand of lead, his fixed eyes did not 
see, and his mouth smiled vaguely with a profound bitterness. 

His lamp was consuming by his side, and his hours passed in silence 
without hope and without remembrance. 

Jesus remained near him without saying anything, and lifting his 
eyes to heaven he prayed. 

The philosopher slowly raised his head, then he shook it and let it fall 
again, murmuring in a low voice: “ Visionary.” 

“Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name!” said 
Jesus. 

“He let you die upon the cross,” returned the thinker, “and you 
cried to him in vain: ‘My God! My God! why hast thou forsaken 
me!’” 



44 


THE LAST IT40AUXATI()N. 


“ May thy kingdom come!” continued the Saviour. 

“ We have been waiting for it these eighteen hundred and forty years,” 
said the philosopher, “ and it is further off now than ever.” 

“What do you know about it?” then said the Master, looking upon 
him with a gentle and serious eye. 

“I do not know even what is the kingdom of God which is to come,” 
replied the philosopher. “If there be a God, he reigns now or he will 
never reign. Now, as I do not see the kingdom of God, I do not expect 
it; and 1 do not even seek any longer to know if there be a God.” 

“Do you also doubt the existence of good and evil?” asked Jesus. 

“The distinction between them is arbitrary, since it varies according 
to time and place.” 

“Put your finger into the flame of your lamp,” said the Saviour. “Why 
do you draw it back so quickly? do you not know that a thinker like 
yourself has said that pain is not an evil?” 

“ The reason is because I do not agree with him, hut I do not know 
if I am more right than he.” 

“ Why do you not agree with him? ” 

“ Because I feel the pain and it is invincibly repugnant to me.” 

“ The distinction between good and evil is not abitrary therefore so 
far as relates to your repugnances and attractions,” then said Jesus. 
“ And in fact evil could not be absolute. Evil exists only for you and for 
all beings which are still imperfect. It is for such therefore that the 
kingdom of God must come, because they themselves will come into the 
kingdom of God. I have convinced you of a physical repugnance, and 
1 will convince you as easily of a moral repugnance. The fire warns 
you by pain that it would destroy the life of your body, and conscience 
warns you by its cries and its remorse, that crime would destroy the life 
of your soul. Evil for you, is destruction; good is life, and life is God! 
The earth buried in darkness now awaits the coming of the sun, and yet 
the sun remains radiant in the centre of the universe, and it is the earth 
which gravitates around it. God reigns, hut you have not entered into 
his kingdom: for the kingdom of my father is the kingdom of science 
and of love, of wisdom and of peace. The kingdom of God is the king¬ 
dom of light, and that light strikes your eyes which do not see it because 
they seek their brightness in themselves and find only darkness.” 

“ Lord, open thou my eyes,” said the philosopher, “ and illumine my 
darkness.” 

Jesus said to him: “ If I had closed your eyes, I ought to open them 
for you; but if I open them and you please to close them again, how 
shall you see the light? Do you not know that the will of a man acts 
upon the lids of his eyes, and that if he is forced to keep his eyes open or 
shut, he loses his sight? 

“ I may induce you to kindle in yourself the fire which enlightens, 
and this is why I make you hear my words; and since you already de¬ 
sire that I should open your eyes, you are not far from seeing.” 

“ What is the fire which enlightens?” asked the philosopher. 

“ You will know,” said the Christ, “when you shall have loved a 
great deal. For if reason is like a lamp, love is its flame. If reason is 
as the eye of our soul, love is its stiength and its life. A great reason 
without love is a beautiful eye that is dead; it is a lamp richly carved, 
but cold and extinct. 


THE LAST raCARNATIOISr. 


45 


“ When the selfishness of the animal passions had caused human phil¬ 
osophy to tail, J saved the world by faith, because faith is the philosophy 
of love. You believe those whom you love, and those by whom you 
know yourself to be loved; thus I gave an immense charity as a basis to 
faith, when I and my apostles had proved to men, by a bloody martyr¬ 
dom, the sincerity of our love. And so long as the Church reigned by 
charity, she triumphed by faith; but faith awaits intelligence, and the mo¬ 
ment is near when those who shall have believed without seeing, will 
understand and see. 

“ If therefore you w;ish to understand, begin by loving, in order to 
believe.” 

“ What then shall I believe. Lord?” 

“ Everything of whiph you are ignorant; for faith is the trust of rea¬ 
sonable ignorance. Believe everything that God knows, and your faith 
will embrace immensity. Trust to your celestial Father everything of 
which he reserves to himself the knowledge, and do not be anxious at 
first about the infinite destinies. Love that immense wisdom whose child 
you are; love other men who pass over the earth ignorant like yourself, 
and for the present still limit your science to the accomplishment of your 
duties; you will soon see it grow of its own accord, and ascend towards 
God, for God allows himself to be seen by pure hearts.” 

“ Oh! to see God!” cried the philosopher, opening his trembling lips, 
like a man who is thirsty and who expects the rain from heaven. “ Oh! 
to reunite at last in my thought all thp scattered rays of that truth which 
I have so much loved, and whiqh always escaped me! But who will 
give me that immense love which makes man commune with God, and 
will bring him near to the centre of all light?” 

“You will deserve it by your works,” said the Christ, “for if man is 
corrupted in the works of corruption, if he is destroyed in the works of 
hatred, he grows and is saved by works of love. In order to draw near 
to God, he must advance, and holy actions are the movements of our 
soul.” 


“What are really holy actions?” asked the doctor; “ are they prayer 
and fasting? ” 

“ Listen,” said the Christ, “ and do not rashly judge your brothers 
who have passed before you, seeking and weeping. Humanity is con¬ 
firmed in its desire by prayer and tears. And those of its children who 
first thirsted for the things of heaven, abstained from those of the earth; 
but all this was only the beginning. It was necessary to know how to 
abstain, in order to learn how to use. It is first necessary to sacrifice the 
body to the mind, in order to emancipate the mind. For the moral heaven 
is the liberty of the soul; but the soul is called upon to govern the 
body, and not to destroy it; as the material sky governs the earth and 
does not destroy it. The age of prayer and tears, must give place to the 
age of labor and hope; for the prayer of the ancients was a labor, and it 
is necessary that our labor should be a more efficacious and more active 

^“How shall I labor?” said the philosopher; “I can do nothing 

^^^“^Then you have lost the vigor of your mind in vain efforts,” replied 
the Christ; “you have not even learnt how to live, you who wished to 
know everything. Become again a little child, and go to the school of 
love. Learn to love and to do good, that is the science of life. 


46 


THE LAST INCAElSrATION. 


“ Remember the legend of Christophorus. He was a terrible giant 
but as he did not know how to use his strength, he was as weak as a child. 
He therefore required a guardian, and he placed himself in the service of 
a king; but the king was ill, and Christophorus left him. He sought for 
him who could make kings siilFer; and as he knew not God, he first at¬ 
tached himself to the genius of evil. But one day a cross appeared upon 
a rock and the genius of evil fell as if struck by lightning. Then 
Christophorus sought for him of whom the cross is the sign, and an old 
man told him that he would find him by doing good. Christophorus 
knew not how to pray or to work, but he was strong and very tall, and 
he carried on his shoulders the wandering travelers who wished to cross 
the torrent. Now, one evening he carried a little child under whom he 
bent as if he was carrying the world, for in the person of the poor wan¬ 
dering orphan he recognized the great God whom he sought. 

“ Do you understand this parable?” 

“ Yes, Lord,” said the philosopher, who was now a Christian. 

“ Well, go and do as did Christophorus; carry the Christ when he 
faints with fatigue, or when the torrents of the world obstruct his pas¬ 
sage. Suffering humanity shall be the Christ for you. Be the eye of 
the poor man, the arm of the weak, and the staff of the old man; and 
God will tell you the great wherefore of the human race.” 

“ I will do it. Lord; and I feel that henceforth I shall not be alone in 
the world. To which of my brothers shall I first extend my hand?” 

“ To him who is more unhappy than you, and who, unknown to you, 
is expiring in the little chamber next to yours. Go then to his assist¬ 
ance, speak to him in order that he may hope, love him that he may 
believe, make yourself loved by him that he may live.” 

“ Lead me to him. Lord, and speak to him for me.” 

“ Come and see,” said the Saviour; and he lightly touched the wall 
which opened in the midst like a double curtain, and the philosopher 
was transported in the spirit to the chamber next his own. It was that 
of a young poet who was about dying deserted. 


FIFTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE DYING POET. 

At that time there was a young man who early in life had heard in 
his soul the echo of universal harmonies. Now, that eternal music had 
distracted his attention from all things of mortal life, because he lived in 
a society which was still without harmony. 

While a child, he was the butt of other children, who took him for an 
idiot; when a young man, he hardly found a hand to clasp his hand, a 
heart on which to rest his heart. 

His days passed in a long silence and in a profound revery; he looked 
with Strang ecstasy upon the sky, the water, the trees, the verdant fields; 
then his eyes became fixed, internal glories were displayed in his mind, 
and surpassed the glories of nature. Then tears flowed unwittingly 
down his cheeks, pale with emotion, and, if any one spoke to him, he 
did not hear. Therefore he was seldom spoken to, and was quite gener¬ 
ally looked upon as crazy. 



TPIE LAST INCARNATION. 


4:7 


He thus lived alone with God and with nature, speaking to God in 
the language of harmony, and letting fall upon the earth songs to which 
no one listened. 

But the material necessities of life at last seized him in their inextri¬ 
cable net; he awoke upon the earth, still dazzled by his visions of heaven ; 
and when he wished to walk, he stumbled against men and against things, 
until he fell panting and despairing. 

It was then that he shut himself up in his poor abode, and there awaited 
death. 

It was then that the Christ looked upon him and had compassion on 
him. 

The poet’s chamber was gloomy, bare and cold; he was only half cov¬ 
ered by a few wornout garments; stretched upon a sad bed of straw, he 
was restless with fever, and his eyes glistened with a dark fire. 

The Christ appeared to him clothed in a white robe, an emblem of 
madness which he had received from Herod, and his brow was crowned 
at the same time with the bloody thorns, and with an aureole of glory. 

“ Brother,” said he to the poor sick man, looking upon him with an 
ineffable love, “ why do you wish to die?” 

“ Because one can no longer live upon the earth after having seen 
heaven,” sighed the poet. 

“And I, in order to live and suffer upon the earth, have nevertheless 
descended from heaven,” returned Jesus. 

“ You are the Son of God and you are strong.” 

“ And I wished to be the son of man, in order to hunger, to fear and 
to weep. Did I not faint in the garden of Olives? Did I not groan 
upon the cross as if God had forsaken me?” 

“ Well,” said the sick man, “I go forth from life as you went forth 
from the garden of Olives, and I am upon my bed of pain as you were 
upon the cross.” 

“ If I had done nothing but pray to my father in the valleys while I 
breathed the perfume of the roses of Sharon, if I had silently intoxicated 
myself with the ecstasies of Mount Tabor, I should not have deserved 
to ransom the world upon the cross,” replied the Saviour. “ But I 
sought for the sheep that had strayed, and in order to stop my feet 
which ran without ceasing after the miseries of the people, it was neces¬ 
sary that they should be nailed by the executioners. It was necessary 
to pierce my hands in order to prevent them from breaking bread for 
the famished multitudes; and then, when I had nothing more to give to 
my brothers, I allowed all my blood to flow.” 

“ I have sung,” said the poet, “ and men have not listened to me.” 

“ That is because you sang for yourself alone, and because you too 
much disdained their disdain. You should, after the example of the 
eternal word, have descended sufficiently to make yourself understood.” 

“ Perhaps, instead of forgetting me, they would then have crucified 
me.” 

“ And then only, O my brother, would it have been beautiful to die 
in order to rise again glorious!” 

“ Master, instead of consoling me in my last hour, do you come to 
terrifv and to reproach me ? ” 

“ I'come to cure you and to inspire you with courage to live, in order 
to enable you to deserve a quiet death and one full of immortality. 


48 


THE LAST mCARNATION. 


“ Why do you vv^ish to live only in heaven during the days which God 
gives you to pass upon the earth? Why do you permit the immense 
love of your heart to be lost in vague aspirations? VV^hy do you isolate 
yourself in the pride of your dreams, while real sorrows bleed and palpi¬ 
tate about you? 

“ God did not give you the celestial balm for the purpose of perfum- 
ing your head; he did not intrust to you the wine of his chalice in order 
that you might intoxicate your mouth and disgust it with the bitter 
things of earth. You ought to soothe, to elevate, to console; you ought 
to be the physician of souls, and now you yourself, because you have con¬ 
cealed the remedies of God, are more ill than the others. 

“ Men have not understood you, you say; but it is you, poor young 
man, who have not understood your brothers. 

“ What! your intellect was superior, and you did not know how to 
speak to the poor in spirit! You thought yourself great, and you were 
afraid to lower yourself in order to bring your mouth near to the ear of 
those who were small! You loved, and you were disgusted by the in¬ 
firmities of men! 

“ Rise up, poor fallen angel, and again begin your mission! Know 
that the spirit of harmony is the spirit of love which I announced to the 
world under the name of the consoler. If it is the Holy Ghost which 
animates you, be henceforth the consoler of your brothers, and in order 
to have the right and the power to console them, learn to suffer and to 
to work with them. 

“ I was greater than you, and more than you I raised my soul to the 
bosom of the eternal harmonies; and yet I passed my life working with 
the carpenters and conversing with the poor, enlightening their minds, 
moving their hearts and curing their, diseases. Until now you have 
made poetry only in dreams and in words, but the time has come to 
make poetry in actions! For everything that is 'done from love of 
humanity, everything that is devotedness, sacrifice, patience, courage and 
perseverance, everything of this nature is sublime with harmony, is the 
poetry of martyrs. 

“ Instead of vaguely loving the infinite, try to love infinitely your 
brothers who are near to you. Here is one whom I bring to you; he 
suffered like you, and he had arrived at extinction of thought because he 
had isolated the labor of his mind, as you had arrived at despair of 
heart, because you had isolated your love. Henceforth you will both 
know that it is not good for man to be alone.” 

The philosopher who had become a Christian then approached the 
bed of the sick man, whose fever had been suddenly calmed by the gen¬ 
tle and severe words of Jesus, and said to him: Brother, accept my 
cares and half of the bread which remains to me; to-morrow we will 
work together, and when I shall be ill in my turn, you will take care of 
me and you will have bread for me. 

“ Brother, because you have seen heaven, do not break the ladder 
which will enable you to ascend thither, but rather take me by the hand 
and lead me, for I have thought much and meditated much, and I now 
feel that I have not loved enough. 

“You, whose voice is the living echo of eternal harmony, you are a 
child of celestial love, for from the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh. But love could not become selfish without killing itself, and 
it can find fullness of life only by giving itself wholl}- to others. 


THE LAST INCARNATION. -II) 

“ Live, therefore, in order that I may love you, for if I love I shall be 
happy; and if you love God, you desire the happiness of those who 
are the children of God like yourself. Harmony is at once science and 
poetry, mathematical exactness is the great law of beauty, and the har¬ 
monic glories are the divine reason of numbers; but all this, to be living 
and real, must be applied to what is. 

“ Brother, the positive of God is a thousand fold more poetical than 
the ideal of man. Let us seek God in humanity, and let us not despair 
of its destinies; for its very disorders lead it to harmony, and if God has 
counted us in the number of those who first see whither this wandering 
people must go through the desert, let us place ourselves at the head of 
this great and laborious movement, instead of isolating ourselves and 
dying.” 

“ Brother, thanks to you,” said the poet, “and thanks to heaven which 
inspires you! henceforth I will no longer withdraw from the field of 
battle in order to die alone, while I can still fight; I should esteem 
myself a coward and a deserter. If I fall with arms in hand in the first 
or second rank of the humanitary militia, I shall die full of courage and 
blessing God, and my soul will not present itself alone before the supreme 
judge.” 

From that day, the philosopher and the poet were united in a holy 
friendship, and sometimes they did not disdain the most humble labors 
to support their life. 

Thus they went through all classes of society and everywhere found 
diseased hearts which awaited the balm of a word of wisdom and of 
love. Everywhere they felt that they could still do good, and the suffer¬ 
ings of life seemed light to them; for they bore them with courage, 
in order to inspire with courage those who suffered like themselves, and 
devotedness gave them new strength. 


SIXTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE NEW NICODEMUS. 

There was at that time a priest who loved the truth, and who sought 
for good in all the sincerity of his heart. 

Now, one night when he was watching and praying, the Christ came 
and seated himself by his side and looked upon him with goodness. 

“ Master, is it you at last?” said the pastor. “ I have sought you for a 
long time, and now you come to me during the night!” 

Jesus answered him: “Nicodemus came to see me during the night, 
because he was afraid of the Jews; I know that your existence depends 
upon the new synagogue, and I do not wish to compromise you. For 
the scribes and the pharisees and the false doctors of the law still perse¬ 
cute me and persecute those who receive me. 

“ Lord,” said the priest with sadness, “ the glorious years of which 
the beautiful ages of the church are composed have then been fruitless 
for the future! Does truth then always escape from the ardent aspira¬ 
tions of men? The saints and martyrs were then deceived, since eigh¬ 
teen centuries of combats and of study have only made enemies to you 
of those who ought to be your ministers.” 

7 



50 


THE LAST INCARNATION. 


Jesus said to him: “They are not all my enemies, and my father still 
reckons among them generous souls and pure hearts. I shall go to them 
as I have come to you, in order to recall to them the signs of the times 
and to open their eyes so that they may see. 

“ I still come in secret to explain to you what I taught in secret to that 
doctor of the ancient law, who was also a man of good will. 

“ I told him that the entrance to the kingdom of God was a new birth. 
The life of the world is an incessantly renewed generation, and it is nec¬ 
essary that the germs of the year which dies should be deposited in the 
earth in order to prepare the riches of the year which shall be boin. 
But new wine must not be put into old bottles. 

“ My father’s vine is never sterile, and from year to year it renews 
its fruits j but he calls the vinedressers at different hours of the day. 
This is why I called the faithful doctors of the ancient law to a new 
birth, for their old mother, the Jewish synagogue, was dying, and in 
order to be born it was necessary to leave her bosom. And those who 
believed left the dead body of the synagogue while they remained united 
to its soul, and they were the first children of the universal Church. 

“But the universal Church was a new heaven and a new earth; and 
in order to renew all things it was first necessary to fight against all the 
•powers of heaven and of earth. This is why the first Christains built an 
ark to struggle against the unchaining of the winds and the rising of the 
waters. That ark was the hierarchical Church, the holy Catholic 
Church, the guardian of the symbol of unity. 

“ So long as the ark is borne by the waters, it moves under the breath 
of God, and in its bosom every living soul seeks a refuge; but, as soon 
as it stops, the new family must come out from it in order to repeople 
the earth, and this is the new birth of which I have spoken to you.” 

The priest said to him: “Lord, must I leave ‘the Catholic Church." 
But to what other church could I unite myself ?” 

“ 1 do not tell you to leave the Catholic Church,” returned Jesus, “but 
I invite you to enter into it. I tell you to free yourself from shadows in 
order to'begin to live in the light. I tell you to leave the school in order 
to enter into society and to apply to it the science which you must have 
acquired! 

“ I did not come to destroy the ancient law, but to give to it its accom¬ 
plishment, and I now come to accomplish the new law. 

“Have I not said: ‘ Believe first and you will understand afterwards, 
and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free?’ 

“ Have I not said that my second coming wou’d be as the light which 
strikes the eyes of all, and which shines at once upon the whole world? 

“ Have I not announced that the spirit of intelligence would come 
and that it would suggest to my disciples the complement of my words? 
And do not your symbols say that the spirit of intelligence is the spirit 
of love which must produce a new creation and make young again the 
face of the earth? Now, is not the spirit of love that spirit of order and 
of harmony which must associate all men, and make them all commune 
in divine and human unity? 

“Come out then from all the bonds which prevent brothers from ad¬ 
vancing toward their brothers, overthrow the barriers which separate, 
enlarge the abodes which are isolated, escape from the doctrines which 
reprove some and elect others, leave the blinded synagogue, enter into the 


THE LAST IHCAEHATIOISL 


51 


Catholic Church, which is now no longer a conventicle of priests and 
of doctors, but the universal association of all men of intelligence and 
love.” 

“ Lord,” said the priest, “ I will do all that you say. Whither shall I 
first go and where shall I begin?” 

“ Remain where you are,” said Jesus, “ and do what you have to do. 
Teach children, catechize the poor, visit the sick and pray for the people. 
Let nothing be changed in your works, but let a universal love vivify 
them and make them fruitful. 

“ Preach mercy and peace, preach modesty and the forgiveness of 
injuries, preach holy aspirations toward God and union among brothers. 
Let charity be the law of your soul, and you will not impose upon the 
souls of others constraints which drive them to despair. Be gentle and 
humble of heart as were my first disciples, when you speak to women, 
to children and to the poor people; but be as inflexible as were my mar¬ 
tyrs, when any one attempts to corrupt or to intimidate you. 

“ What I say to you, I say for all those who, like you, shall believe 
in the spirit of intelligence and love; and this is why I address my words 
to many. 

“ Do not confound the spirit of abstinence with the spirit of death; 
for I ordered my disciples to abstain for awhile from the riches of their 
father, only that they might learn to use those riches worthily. < 

“ I tell you in truth that I have not come to kill the flesh, but to save 
it by subjecting it to the spirit. For there should be no division between 
the spirit and the flesh of mart; God has created and blessed them equally. 

“The spirit is the king of the flesh; a king must not reign in order 
to destroy. 

“The organs and the senses are the subjects of the intellect; a king 
should prevent his subjects from doing evil; but he should also provide, 
for their prosperity and happiness. 

“ Is not attraction then the general law of beings, and is not equilibrium 
the harmony of attractions? 

“ Let not the spirit then break the flesh, and let not the flesh extinguish 
the spirit. For either of these excesses would be death! 

“ Now, I have not come to kill those who lived, I have come to restore 
health to those who were sick and life to those who were dead!” 

Having said all these, things, Jesus disappeared from the eyes of the 
good priest, and left him full of hope and of courage; for he saw the 
power of God supply from age to age the shortcomings of men, and he 
understood how religion advances always through the ages, growing 
and triumphing always. 


SEVENTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE TOMB OF SAINT JOHN. 

At that time Jesus traversed with the rapidity of the spirit all the 
countries of the earth. All were sad and expectant. And everywhere 
the Christ was still alone, as in the garden of Olives. 

He entered as a poor pilgrim, into the basilica of Saint Peter, where 
no one recognized him; he approached the tomb of his apostles, in order 



52 • THE LAST INCARNATION. 

to see if their relics were ready for resurrection; but the ashes of the 
saints were cold, and they continued to sleep their sleep. 

Now, there is one of those apostles who, according to the tradition, 
was never to die; he whom the symbolic painting represents to us as 
always young, and who has an eagle for emblem; it is the one who is 
called the apostle of charity and the disciple of love. 

It is this one, say the legends of earlier times, who is to awake at the 
end of the ages, in order to save the world, by rekindling the holy fire 
of fraternal charity; and, in fact, say those same legends, his remains 
were never found; the faithful of Ephesus thought to bury him, and 
retain him among them, but the angels came and hid the sleeping apostle 
in the solitudes of Patmos. 

Jesus therefore transported himself into the island of Patmos, which 
seemed still terrified by the noise of the seven thunders, and he approached 
the grotto where slept his faithful disciple. At the entrance of the tomb, 
a celestial form was seated motionless; it was like a woman, clothed in a 
long azure mantle, which covered her head, and enveloped her entirely, 
falling around her in large folds. 

Her pale and somewhat elongated hands w'ere clasped with fervor; 
and her eyes, full of a resigned sadness and an infinite hope, were fixed 
upon the tomb. 

Jesus approached her, and said: “ My mother, is it you? You doubt¬ 
less knew that I would come here?” 

“I did know it, my son,” replied Mary; “for you tenderly loved him 
who rests here; and when you were about to die, you confided me to 
him, saying unto him: ‘ Behold your mother!’ 

“Now, in order that I may be able to return upon the earth in the 
person of the women who shall understand what it is to be mothers, 
it is necessary that the disciple of love should revive in order to protect 
me. For in the person of all women of intelligence and love, I must 
bring you into the world a second time, O my son!” 

“Mother,” returned Jesus, “do you remember what the angel said to 
the women who sought me in the sepulchre? ‘Why do you seek the 
living among the dead? He has risen, he is no longer here.’ 

“You know that the prophet Elias, according to the traditions of the 
Jews, was to return upon the earth, in order to prepare the way for me. 
The form of Elias was transfigured, and his spirit returned in the person 
of John the Baptist. 

“Thus, I tell you in truth that you live now upon the earth in the per¬ 
son of all women who feel the hope of the future thrill in their bosom. 
This’s why, my mother, you this day appear for the last time under your 
symbolic figure. 

“John, my beloved disciple, bequeathed his spirit to a’l the men full 
of faith and love, who wish to build the new Jerusalem, the holy city of 
harmony, and I tell you in truth that those men know how to honor 
their mother, and that they are worthy to be called the sons of the 
woman. 

“ For they submit their heart to the inspirations of your heart, those 
who wish to divide labor among all the children of the great family 
according to the attractions and the fitness of each, in order that all 
together may produce the honey of the human hive, which shall after¬ 
wards serve for the nourishment of all. 


THE LAST INCAKHATION. 


53 


“ They know what woman is, those who wish to emancipate her love 
from all servitude, in order that it may never be prostituted, and that 
the source of the generations may be pure. 

“Rise up, therefore, and come with me, my mother; come upon Cal¬ 
vary, to be present at my last symbolic triumph; then we will live again 
in the whole of humanity. All the women will be you, and all the men 
will be me, and we two will make but one.” 

And the Christ, raising his mother and carrying her in his arms, as she 
had so often carried him when he was a little child, left the island of 
Patmos, and, walking upon the waves of the sea, went toward the shores 
of Palestine. 

At this moment the sun rose, and made the whole surface of the waters 
glisten, and the two celestial forms glided along without casting any 
shadow, and without leaving any trace, like a pair of fabulous birds, or 
like a light cloud, tinged with the colors of the dawn, and shaded with 
the reflections of the rainbow. 


EIGHTEENTH LEGEND. 

THE FAREWELL TO CALVARY. 

Jesus crossed the desolate fields of Judea and stopped upon the arid 
summit of ancient Calvary. 

There an angel with black brows and gloomy eye was seated, envel¬ 
oped in his two vast wings. It was Satan, the king of the old world. 

The rebellious angel was sad and fatigued, and he turned away his 
looks with disgust from an earth in which evil was without genius, and 
in which the ennui of a timid corruption had taken the place of the 
Titanian combats of the great ancient passions. He felt that in trying 
men he had taught the strong and deceived only the weak; therefore he 
no longer deigned to tempt any one, and gloomy under his diadem of 
gold, he vaguely listened to the fall of soulS into eternity, as to the mon¬ 
otonous drops of an eternal rain. 

Impelled by a force which was unknown to him, he had come and 
seated himself upon Calvary, and thinking of the death of the Man- 
God, he was jealous of him. 

He was a po^verful and beautiful angel; but he was jealous of the 
Christ, and that jealousy was symbolized by a serpent which buried its 
head in his bosom and gnawed his heart. 

Jesus and Mary stood before him and looked upon him in silence with 
great pity. Satan in his turn looked upon the Redeemer and smiled 
with bitterness. 

“ Have you come,” said he to him, “ to try and die a second time for a 
world which you could not save by your first execution ? Have you 
tried in vain to change stones into bread to feed your people, and do you 
come to confess to me your defeat? Have you fallen from the pinnacle 
of the temple, and has your divinity been broken by its fall? 

“ Do you come to adore me, in order that you may possess the world ? 
Go! it is too late now, and I could not deceive you. The empire of the 
world has departed from those who adored me in your name; and I 



54 


THE LAST mCAKHATIOH. 


myself am tired of reigning without glory. If you are discouraged like 
me, take your seat b}’’ my side, and let us think no longer of God or of 
man.” 

“ I do not come to take a seat by your side,” said the Christ, “I come 
to raise you, to forgive you and to console you, in ‘order that you may 
cease to be wicked.” 

“ I want none of your forgiveness,” replied the bad angel, “ and it is 
not I who am wicked. 

“ The wicked one is he who gives to spirits a thirst for intelligence, 
and who envelopes the truth in an impenetrable mystery. It is he who* 
allows to their love the glimpse of an ideal virgin, of a beauty so intox¬ 
icating as to cast them into delirium, and who gives her to them only to 
tear her at once from their first embraces, and to load her with eternal 
chains. It is he in fine who has given liberty to the angels, and who has 
prepared infinite punishments for those who did not wish to be his slaves. 

“ The wicked one is he who has killed his innocent son under the pre¬ 
text of avenging upon him the crimes of the guilty, and who has not 
pardoned the guilty, but has made the death of his son an additional 
crime on their part.” 

Why recall to me so bitterly the ignorance and the errors of men ?” 
returned Jesus. “ I know better than you do how much they have dis¬ 
figured the image of God, and you yourself know very well that God 
does not resemble the image they have made of him. 

“ God gave you a thirst for intelligence only to quench it forever with 
the waters of eternal truth. But why close your eyes and seek for day¬ 
light in yourself instead of looking at the sun? If you sought the light 
where it is, you would find it, for in God there are neither shadows nor 
mysteries; the shadows are in yourself, and the mysteries are the weak¬ 
nesses of your spirit. 

“ God did not give liberty to his creatures in order to take her from 
them again, but he gives her to them as a wife, and not as an illegitimate 
mistress; he desires that they should possess her and not commit violence 
on her, for that chaste daughter of heaven cannot survive an outrage, 
and when her virgin dignity is wounded, liberty is dead to him who has 
misunderstood her. 

“Goddoes^not desire slaves; it is revolted pride which has created 
servitude. The law of God is the royal right of his creatures; it is the 
title of their everlasting liberty. 

“ God did not kill his son, but the son of God voluntarily gave his life 
in order to kill death; and this is why he now lives in the whole of 
humanity, and will save all the generations, for from trial to trial he leads 
the human family into the promised land, and they have already tasted 
its first fruits. I therefore come to announce to you, O Satan, that your 
last hour has arrived, unless you wish to be free and to reign with me 
over the world, by intelligence and love. 

“ But you shall no longer be called Satan, you shall resume the glor¬ 
ious name of Lucifer, and I will place a star on your brow and a torch 
in your hand. You shall be the genius of labor and of industry, because 
you have greatly striven, greatly suffered, and sadly thought! 

“You shall stretch your wings from one pole to the other, and you 
shall hover over the world; glory shall reawaken at your voice. Instead 
of being the pride of isolation, you shall be the sublime pride of devot- 


THE LAST INCARNATIOJSL 


55 


edness, and I will give to you the sceptre of earth and the key of 
heaven.” 

“ I do not understand you,” said the demon, sadly shaking his head, 
“and I am not able to understand you. You know well that I can no 
longer love!” And with a sorrowful gesture the fallen angel showed 
to the Christ the wound that furrowed his chest and the serpent that 
gnawed his heart. 

Jesus turned toward his mother, and looked upon her; Mary under¬ 
stood the eyes of her son; she approached the unhappy angel, and did 
not disdain to stretch forth her hand to him, and to touch his wounded 
breast. Then the serpent fell of itself and expired at the feet of Mary, 
who crushed its head; the wound of the angel’s heart was healed, and a 
tear, the first he had shed, slowly descended upon the repentant coun¬ 
tenance of Lucifer. That tear was precious as the blood of a God; and 
by it were ransomed all the blasphemies of hell. 

The regenerated angel prostrated himself upon Calvary, and weeping, 
kissed the place where the cross had formerly stood. 

Then he rose, triumphing with hope and radiant with love, and threw 
himself into the arms of the Christ. 

Then Calvary trembled; its arid summit was suddenly clothed with a 
fresh and brilliant verdure, and was crowned with flowers. 

At the spot where the cross had stood, a young vine grew and was 
loaded with ripe and perfumed fruit. 

The Saviour then said: “ This is the vine which shall give the wine 
of universal communion, and it shall grow until all its branches shall 
embrace the whole earth.” 

Then taking his mother by the hand, he extended the other to the 
angel of liberty, and said: “ Let our symbolical forms now return to 

heaven; I shall not again come back to suffer death upon this mountain, 
Mary will no longer weep here for her son, and Lucifer will no longer 
drag here the remorse of his now effaced crime. 

“We are now but one spirit; the spirit of intelligence and of love, the 
spirit of liberty and of courage, the spirit of life which has triumphed 
over death.” 

Then all three took their flight through space ; and rising to a prodi¬ 
gious height, they saw the earth and all its kingdoms stretching their 
roads towards each other like arms intertwined; they saw the fields already 
green with the first fraternal crops, and from East to West they heard 
the mysterious prelude of the chant of union. And towards the North, 
upon the crest of a bluish mountain, they saw portrayed the gigantic 
figure of a man who raised his arms toward heaven. Upon his arms 
could still be seen the recent marks of the chains he had just broken, and 
his chest was scarred like that of Lucifer. Under his right foot, upon 
the sharpest peak of the mountain, still palpitated the body of a vulture, 
the head and wings of which hung down. 

That mountain was the Caucasus; and the delivered giant who stretched 
forth his hands was the ancient Prometheus. 

Thus the great divine and human symbols met and saluted each other 
under the same heaven; then they disappeared to give place to God him¬ 
self, who came to dwell forever with men. 


56 


THE LAST mCARHATIOH. 


NINETEENTH LEGEND. 

THE LAST VISION. 

Above material forms of the terrestial atmosphere there is a region 
whither souls rush when freed from their chains. 

It is there that the ethereal aromas, obedient to the thought, clothe it 
in succession with all the splendors of the ideal form, and people with 
marvelous beauties the spiritual world of poetry and of visions. 

It is into this region that our most beautiful dreams transport us during 
our sleep, and it is hither that, during their laborious watchings, inspira¬ 
tion elevated the genius of the great poets, to whom the feeling of har¬ 
mony has, in all ages, given a foresight of the great destinies of human¬ 
ity. It is here that images live and analogies reign. For poetry is in the 
images; and the harmony of images is essentially analogical. 

It was in this ideal region that Eschylus saw Prometheus suffer, and 
that Moses heard the words of Jehovah. It was here that the greatest 
poet of the East, the eagle of Patmos, and singer of the Apocalypse, 
saw the Christian Church under the form of a woman in labor who was 
painfully bringing forth the man of the future. It was in this marvel¬ 
ous world of poetry and of visions that God appeared to him veiled in 
light and holding in his hand the eternal gospel, which slowly opened 
while the plagues scourged the world, and the destroying angels cleared 
the earth in order to make place for the city of holy unity and of har¬ 
mony, the New Jerusalem, which descended from heaven already built, 
because the idea of harmony exists in God, and will be realized of itself 
upon the earth when men shall understand it. 

The glorious figure of the Christ, after having traversed the earth, 
reascended into that ethereal region, and there the Redeemer showed to 
the formerly rebellious, and henceforth regenerate angel, the great assem¬ 
bly of the martyrs. 

There were united all the victims of human despotism, all those who 
had preferred to die rather than to lie to their conscience. The victims 
of Antiochus, the martyrs of ancient Rome, and those executed by 
modern Rome. 

Some for legitimate beliefs, others for illusions and dreams, they 
had courageously braved the tyranny of men, and all were pure before 
God; for they had suffered in order to preserve the noblest and the most 
beautiful of his gifts: liberty. * 

Long had their souls, clothed in white robes spotted with blood, 
groaned under the altar and cried for justice; hut at last, the day had 
come, and all together, bearing palms in their hands, they advanced to 
meet the Redeemer. 

The Christ appeared in the midst of them, between his mother and 
the angel of repentance, and asked them what vengeance they wished to 
take on their persecutors. 

“ Lord, let their souls be given to us, in order that we may dispose of 
them for eternity, as they disposed of us in time.” 

The Christ then gave to them the keys of heaven and of hell, and 
said to them: “The souls of your persecutors are yours.” 

Then a cry of joy and triumph resounded from the heights of heaven 
even to the depths of the abyss; the souls of the martyrs open the gates 


thp: last incaknation. 


57 


of hell and extend the hand to their executioners. Every reprobate 
finds one of the elect for a protector; heaven enlarges its circumference, 
and the virgin mother weeps with joy at seeing crowd around her so 
many children whom she had thought forever lost. 

While the whole of heaven smiled at this magnificent spectacle, a new 
sun was seen to rise upon the earth, and night drew back her veil towards 
the west. The dark clouds of the past fled laden with phantoms, which 
were the shadows of the great extinct monarchies and of old vanished 
beliefs. 

Between the night and the rising dawn, the twilight whitened the 
head of an old man who was seated with his face turned towards the 
east. It was the traveler of Christian centuries, the outcast of barba¬ 
rous civilization, the type of the parias, the old Ahasuerus who was 
resting himself. The people had at last a country, and the Wandering 
Jew had obtained his pardon. 

The earth had become the temple of God. Universal association had 
realized Christian charity. All lived and labored for each, and each for 
all. Each enjoyed in peace the fruit of his labors, and no one of the 
children of God perished with hunger near the table of his father, for 
equitably recompensed labor made life easy for all. 

Association had increased a hundred fold the riches of the earth, and 
the union of all interests had given to the labors of man a direction so 
divine and a power so marvelous, that the seasons themselves had 
changed, and there was, according to the promise of the apostle, a new 
heaven and a new earth; and Jesus said to the angel of liberty and of 
genius: “This is the work which you must accomplish. This is the 
new city of intelligence and of love. The earth is ready, it thrills with 
hope. Men see it now as it was formerly seen by the prophet, covered 
with ashes and with bones; but a new life already stirs under those 
ashes, and a divine impulse is,working in those dry bones. Soon they 
will rise at the call of the new spirit, and a new people will cover the 
fields of earth. Humanity will then wake out of a long sleep, and it 
will appear to it that it sees daylight for the first time!” 

Having uttered these words, the Christ prostrated himself before the 
throne of his Father, saying: “Lord, may thy will be done on earth as 
it is done in heaven!” 

And the virgin, who is the type of regenerated woman; and the angel 
of liberty, who had become the genius of order and of harmony; and 
all the martyrs, who were consoled; and all the reprobates, who were 
penitent and were freed from their sufferings; answered all together 
that mysterious word which unites the will of the creature to that of the 
Creator, and all human forces to the divine power: Amen! 


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THE LAST INCAENATION. 


59 


EPILOGUE. 


We have now to offer these legends’to all our brotliers who labor 
with us upon the social edifice. We hope they will assist the intelligent 
and serious men of the people to understand the symbolism of the Gospel, 
that always true book, which contains so much depth in the simplicity 
of its teachings and in the artless poetry of its parables. We have not 
had the intention of writing a new gospel, but we have endeavored to 
apply to the diseases of modern society the always powerful virtue of 
the ancient gospel spirit, by making the Christ speak as we think he 
would speak, should he again come among us. 

Each can supply the insufficiency of these legends. The perfect man 
may be represented as struggling with all human imperfections, and it is 
in this sense that St. John the Evangelist says, at the end of his mystic 
recital: “If all the actions and all the words of the Christ were written 
in detail, the whole world, I think, would not contain the books that 
should be written.” 

We have entitled this work “ The Last Incarnation,” because we 
herein seek to explain how the divine Word, after having been incarna¬ 
ted in a man who is the head and the model of humanity, must at last be 
incarnated in the whole of humanity by the communion of all to the in¬ 
telligence of one same spirit, and to the fraternity of one same love. 

May we have succeeded in our efforts to communicate our faith to 
those who doubt, and our hope to those who are discouraged! for, at this 
period, when all seems to be perishing, we have the certainty of being 
present at the revival of the world. 

Already socialism is no longer a system; it is the universal religion of 
all active intelligences and of all young and living hearts. 

Christianity is at last about to realize its promises; and philosophy, 
arriving at unity by means of synthesis, is becoming essentially reli- 
o-ious. Reason is also about to be reconciled forever with Faith. 

The time of superstitions has passed away. Men can no longer be 
amused by mysterious images, no longer can they be made tp tremble by 
inexplicable enigmas. 



60 


THE LAST mCAEHATION. 


God has given to us the intellect in order that we may understand, and 
the heart in order that we may love: and by the feelings he gives to our 
hearts of his harmonies, he raises our spirit even to himself. 

God being supreme wisdom, has created everything for an end, and 
has given to all his creatures the means of attaining the end which he 
assigns to them. He preserves harmony among the stars by the laws 
of attraction, and it is by the same laws that he has regulated before¬ 
hand the destinies ot men. 

The attractions are therefore 'proportional to the destinies. 

Now, the different attractions all have harmonic unity for their end, 
but they must cause all wills to act in different circles magnificently co¬ 
ordained among themselves. An immense chain of harmony connects 
with God all his works, and from series to series he distributes life to all 
beings. 

The series distributes the harmonies. 

Analogical relations exist between the series, and are as the steps of 
the ladder of science, of that ladder of gold which the prophet formerly 
saw during his sleep, and which assisted the spirits to ascend from earth 
to heaven, and to descend from heaven to earth. 

These are the bases of the new science; they are founded upon all 
philosophical and religious traditions; and we can say that they are not 
the principles of a school, but the theorems of the most advanced science, 
and the incontestable dogmas of true universal religion. 


THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 









































































